By RON SELAK JR.
Tribune Chronicle
WARREN - One city's waste is another city's treasure.
Finally in a position to sell a large portion of its reserve capacity at the Main Avenue S.W. bio-solids plant, Warren Water Pollution Control Director Thomas Angelo told City Council's wastewater committee Thursday that the city is expecting to collect more than $1 million for processing out-of-state human waste.
Angelo said that late last year Warren began processing trial loads delivered from four communities surrounding New York City: Jamaica Bay, Oakwood Beach, Tulman Island and Yonkers, for $39 a ton.
It's an extension of a deal that fell through two years ago.
Angelo said Warren then had been processing trial runs of waste from 10 cities, but the waste broker at the time lost the New York contract. Fast forward two years, and a new broker was recommended from the New York Department of Environmental Protection to look into doing business with Warren because, Angelo said, the DEP was impressed with the city's bio-solids program.
Space for waste in New York City is at a premium.
In 1986, the dumping of waste into the ocean was banned, and with real estate a hot commodity, the city is forced to truck waste to landfills across the nation, Angelo said.
"The city of New York has no real estate they are going to use to build a treatment plant,'' he said.
Angelo said the Warren plant now processes about 40 tons of waste a day but has a capacity of 240 tons, and New York wants to use 180 of those surplus tons. However, Angelo said he's comfortable with selling only 168 reserve tons at this point.
"I'll eventually see where we can go on a load,'' Angelo said. "I'm going to ramp it up slowly. I'm going to make sure of quality control. I'm going to make sure of truck traffic.''
Thirty-nine dollars a ton at 168 tons a day means a revenue of $1.6 million, Angelo said. In the first year, minus expenses, the project should generate between $500,000 and $600,000.
A tentative contract is on the table for the $39 a ton, but part of the discussion is to increase the cost to cover rising processing costs by 3 percent a year for each year of the contract, which should be for nine years. Angelo said that the waste broker has nine more years on its contract with New York City.
A meeting is set next week among Warren officials to discuss the idea. Angelo added that eventually some of the out-of-state waste could be used in developing new blends of Nature's Blend, a human waste-to-fertilizer operation.