Sparta will start taking treated sludge to the local landfill next week after acquiring a needed TDEC permit to resume disposal.
Sparta Public Works Director Dillard Quick said the city has not been able to dispose of the sludge as the city lost access to the landfill once it was sold to Waste Management, and the city had not been permitted to take it anywhere else. Quick said the city desperately needed the permit.
“We don’t have the land to land apply the silt,” Quick said. “So we have to have a landfill like this to take our silt so we can make water. So it is the game, it’s not just a game changer, it’s the game.”
Quick said Waste Management first had to construct a new landfill cell before the city could begin hauling sludge. He added that additional permitting requirements significantly delayed approval for disposal.
“I was hoping that it would have been last summer, but you know, we have been able to hobble along long enough that it’s working out the way it should,” Quick said.
Quick said the city will take anywhere from 500 to 750 tons of sludge at once. Quick said that the city will then wait for the sludge basins to fill up and do the same thing again next year. Quick said the city has a new machine that will help with this process.
“We are gonna start getting the silt in pancake-type form, to where instead of water and mud, what this machine will do is it will take about 80 percent of the water out of it, and it will be like a little pancake, put it in the truck and haul it to the landfill.”
Quick warned that without the permit, the city’s water plant would eventually reach a point where it could no longer produce water.