GREENFIELD — In February, Public Works Director Donald Ouellette used a PowerPoint presentation showing dramatic, sharply rising costs for sewage sludge disposal to illustrate why the city would be better off with a multi-million dollar sludge disposal plant of it own.
His proposal to seek a grant and partner with neighboring towns may still make sense, but his numbers were wrong.
Ouellette told the public the cost of removing sludge has dramatically increased in the past three years, and based on his numbers, he projected it would climb to $400,000 by July, a 122 percent increase since 2015. But this prediction was miscalculated by Ouellette.
Nonetheless, Ouellette claims an increase will happen because Greenfield can no longer take its waste to the recently closed disposal site in Montague, and instead the city will have to haul sewage sludge to Lowell, Millbury and Cranston, R.I.
“Was it perfectly accurate? No, but it was close,” Ouellette said this week. “It’s more important to show you the trend.”
At February’s forum, Ouellette said it is in the city’s best interest to join a burgeoning regional effort to have its own disposal site, which could build an anaerobic digester in Montague. He said this could likely cost the city about $287,000 a year in the first few years — cheaper than that $400,000 price tag he estimated for this year — and then save the city money in the long run.
Ouellette’s numbers and the actual numbers both show increases over the past few years, but they tell different stories.
What Ouellette presented to the public shows a steady increase since 2015, making it seem realistic the numbers could reach $400,000 by the end of the 2018 fiscal year in July. This was the main argument for why the city should invest in a regional anaerobic digester, which turns sludge into methane gas and other potentially reusable materials.
The correct numbers show an increase, but it was essentially a one-time jump when the city switched from using nearby Montague almost exclusively, and not a linear progression.
In 2015 and 2016, Greenfield spent significantly less than it did in 2017 and in the 2018 fiscal year so far — but 2017 and 2018 have cost about the same.
The numbers Ouellette presented at the meeting, which are available on the city’s website as a PowerPoint, for costs for sludge disposal as follows: $180,000 in 2015; $220,000 in 2016; $320,000 in 2017 and a projected cost of $400,000 in 2018.
Ouellette’s presentation also showed an 18 percent increase from 2015 to 2016, a 31 percent increase from 2016 to 2017 and a projected 20 percent increase from 2017 to 2018, which are all inaccurately calculated percentages.
The actual numbers, according to the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District, which holds contracts for sludge disposal with Greenfield and other towns in the county, are: $160,489 in 2015; $168,618 in 2016; $255,187 in 2017 and $142,095 so far this fiscal year, which is about $10,000 less than for the same time frame as last year. The DPW later confirmed these are the right numbers.
The figures Ouellette used at February’s forum showed a trend of a 78 percent increase in sludge removal costs from 2015 to 2017, while the actual numbers say it’s a 59 percent increase.
Ouellette emphasized at the forum, and again since then, that not having Montague should escalate costs dramatically because the DPW has to ship to a more expensive site in Lowell.
This raises questions about whether those numbers first presented at the forum misdirected the conversation.
Ouellette did not think so and offered a couple of different explanations for the reason of the discrepancy in the costs. He first said the discrepancy was a result of the difference between fiscal and calendar year numbers, which he later admitted was not the correct explanation. The incorrect numbers instead, he said, “may just be an exaggeration on my part.”
He added, when going back to look at the numbers in more detail, “we screwed up the dates.” He said the number he presented to the forum for 2015 was actually the 2016 value, leading to some of the confusion.
Ouellette said he still expects costs for the 2018 fiscal year to come in at $400,000 and the city can “easily expect $300,000.” The price continues to be an issue with Lowell, which charges more per gallon than other locations. He said Greenfield is in the middle of negotiating costs with Lowell to try to bring them down.
One of the people watching this closely is Franklin County Solid Waste Management District Executive Director Jan Ameen.
She said she clearly can see why Greenfield would want to take a regional approach, while at the same time said everyone has to do their homework.
“There are a lot of great ideas and this is a great idea, but the question now is, is it economically feasible?” Ameen said. “I think that’s where we’re at.”
Greenfield and towns across Franklin County, led by Montague, are lobbying for a grant from the federal government to help them finance the option of an anaerobic digester. Technically, Greenfield doesn’t qualify on its own for the grant because it’s too big, but the city is trying to become part of the regional effort to secure the grant.
One reason that Greenfield is interested in being part of the regional effort, Ouellette said, was the digester would allow Greenfield to reduce solid waste disposal costs over the long run and is likely worth the investment.
Ameen, head of the regional municipal waste service, said places like Greenfield are now reckoning with the “true cost” of disposal now that it doesn’t have the benefit of Montague’s disposal location. “Clearly Greenfield reaped the benefit of a local disposal option,” she said.
Ameen said she can’t calculate what that anaerobic digester could cost Greenfield or any town because, “you really need an expert who knows the economics of the process.
“I think that’s why it’s so important to do some good cost benefit analysis of the digester,” Ameen said. “You got to see if it’s really advantageous financially.”
You can reach
Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264