RI lawmakers look for solution in a small state with a big problem: nowhere to send sludgeResolution calling for 19-member study commission come...

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RI lawmakers look for solution in a small state with a big problem: nowhere to send sludge
Resolution calling for 19-member study commission comes as Woonsocket looks to close regional incinerator

The Woonsocket Wastewater Treatment Facility houses one of two incinerators in the state, treating sewage byproducts from across the region. Its pending closure spurred state lawmakers to review solutions to state wastewater treatment. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)

Every toilet flush in Janine Burke-Wells’ West Warwick home sends her family’s sewage on a 670-mile journey.

Its first stop: the West Warwick Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility, where clarifying equipment separates out clean water to be discharged into the Pawtuxet River. The remaining solid waste byproduct, called sludge, is trucked to Westborough, Massachusetts, then shipped on a railway car to a landfill in New Lexington, Ohio, 45 miles southeast of Columbus.

It’s a complicated and costly trek — West Warwick pays the Ohio landfill more than $1.2 million a year to take in the 7,500 tons of sludge its regional wastewater plant produces from five municipalities. But it was the only solution Jeff Chapdelaine, superintendent for the Pontiac Avenue facility, could come up with after the incinerator in Woonsocket turned them away due to equipment failures and capacity constraints.

“We’d be calling the [Rhode Island Resource Recovery Center] at 7 a.m. saying ‘hey, can we come here today,” Chapdelaine said. “It was not sustainable.”

The scarcity of sludge treatment across the state has now drawn the attention of state lawmakers, who are looking to set up a legislative panel to understand and address the lack of options. The study commission resolution, sponsored by Rep. Terri Cortvriend, a Portsmouth Democrat, is scheduled for an initial hearing before the House Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Thursday night.

Cortvriend acknowledged she doesn’t know much about the intricacies of sewage removal — Portsmouth relies on individual septic, not municipal sewage, systems.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with my district, but as a state, it sounds like something that has to be dealt with,” she said. “Trucking waste to Ohio does not sound like a good long-term solution.”

Especially as Woonsocket looks to get out of the regional incineration business, fed up with degrading equipment, worsening odors, and a pair of 2023 lawsuits: one by state regulators over environmental violations from its plant, and a second by local residents over the smells, noise and truck traffic.

The Woonsocket City Council is scheduled to meet in a closed-door session Thursday night to discuss both pending lawsuits.
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