Watertown, DANC renegotiate leachate contract for wastewater treatment plant

Craig Fox, Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.
·1 min read

Mar. 4—WATERTOWN — The city will receive $275,000 more a year for the way the city handles leachate from the Development Authority of North Country's landfill in Rodman.

Mayor Jeffrey M. Smith was able to renegotiate a better price because the city shut down its incinerator in 2016, so it was no longer taking its sludge byproduct — ash and grit — to the landfill. The leachate is treated at the city wastewater treatment plant.

That "processed and refined" material, called bio-solid, is now sold by a contractor, Casella Waste, as fertilizer for farms, the mayor said.

With DANC no longer providing that service for the city, the mayor and DANC officials were able to renegotiate "that part of the contract, that benefit," the mayor said.

All of that results in the city receiving $275,000 more in revenue, based on an expected 20 million gallons of leachate treated at the plant each year, City Manager Kenneth A. Mix said. This past year, 22 million gallons of leachate were treated there.

"There's more revenue for the sewage treatment plant, and I think that's good," Mayor Smith said.

Before the new agreement was reached, DANC paid $0.01640 per gallon for the leachate that's taken to the city's wastewater treatment plant. Under the new contract, the mayor was able to negotiate a higher price for the leachate treatment to make up for the lost value of the ash and grit disposal. The new contract increases the price to $0.03015 per gallon.

The new agreement begins April 1.