WOONSOCKET – In a strong rebuke of his former boss, Public Works Director Steve D’Agostino took former Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt to task this week for her comments on the legitimacy of officials’ plans to shut down the city’s waste incinerator.
City leaders have committed to permanently shutting down the sewage sludge incinerator at the Cumberland Hill Road wastewater plant, motivated in large part by the substandard operation that’s led to a near-constant stench in the surrounding area.
D’Agostino, at Monday’s council meeting, said most candidates for public office know little to nothing about wastewater processes because they haven’t been in a position to know before. He then called out the former mayor (someone who is now running for City Council despite her fall from grace and resignation as mayor) for her “interesting” comments on local radio.
The veteran DPW director, an employee often seen by Baldelli-Hunt’s side during her time in office, took issue with her statements made on the radio about closing the incineration plant being a great soundbite, about the importance of federal partnerships, and about waiting to see what the closure move will do to sewer bills.
He said the closure of the plant isn’t a soundbite, but is going to happen, noting his conversations with various parties that day. Synagro is operating the plant and they want to close it, he said, and local officials don’t have any use for federal partners to keep it open. He said they’ve stood shoulder to shoulder (“where have you heard that before?”) with others to close the facility.
D’Agostino said they would be meeting shortly with the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, and the city will need to submit a plan to remove its sludge from the city as part of the protocol to shut it down.
D’Agostino noted that a proposed plant at Quonset Point raised concerns about smells five miles away, but this plant is 1,700 feet from the city hospital, 2,100 feet from the middle school, and 2,700 feet from the high school. He said hopefully the current gubernatorial candidates will stand shoulder to shoulder with the city to close a facility in serious disrepair and at the end of its life. Estimated costs to repair it are in the neighborhood of $60 million, he added.
Councilor Jim Cournoyer then asked how that kind of figure would impact the rate.
All parties involved in this situation believe in the positives associated with closing it, said D’Agostino, the biggest one being the odors all but going away. This was one of the worst places in the city to put such a plant, he said, at the lowest point in a valley where odors rise up and out and are carried by the prevailing winds.
The director said once the wastewater plant realizes the incinerator is no longer impacting it, electricity costs go down, the need for expensive chemicals is reduced, and wear and tear on the plant declines. All those things you don’t see and hear about but that Baldelli-Hunt should know about, he said. He joked that the plant could then finally breathe a sigh of relief, maybe even have a cigarette afterward.
Neighbors, said D’Agostino, have suffered with the stench for decades, and eliminating the smell will be the biggest benefit. He then asked Councilor Denise Sierra what it was like for her when she was trying to run the Burrito Company between the plant and hospital.
She responded that many nights they couldn’t use their outdoor space, and customers would walk away because they couldn’t seat them fast enough.
In a future where he’s not here, said D’Agostino, he doesn’t want anyone falling for promises of rebuilding a state-of-the-art facility with no odors. That, he said, would be the “biggest crock of you know what you’ll ever hear.”
The trucks that bring human waste into the city are vented for a reason, said the director, and the gases have to escape, otherwise the metal would probably explode. The source of that constant stench can never be stopped with that reality of the trucks coming and going, he said, and it will be a welcome sight when the incinerator shuts down.
Submitting their plan to remove sludge will be one of many steps to be taken, he said, adding that he expects a minor increase to bills as a result of the closure.
Current officials have had rare unanimous agreement that the plant has to shut down and not stay open under any circumstances, said D’Agostino, agreeing with Cournoyer.
Speaking of high costs, said D’Agostino, again referencing Baldelli-Hunt, the reason property taxes are so high is because of all the lawsuits the city had to pay for based on overassessed properties under Baldelli-Hunt, including a $13 million assessment of the Walnut Hill Plaza when it sold for $5.7 million.
“I’d be a little pissed too,” he said of those who filed lawsuits.
Council President Dan Gendron said people he speaks to generally don’t seem to realize that there are two separate operations in the same area of the city: wastewater and the incinerator. Closing the incinerator will mean ending incineration of enormous volumes of dry human waste tonnage, he said, which should mean a reduction in the cost of operations for the wastewater plant. D’Agostino agreed, saying the cost of chemicals and electricity alone are huge.
Gendron then said that they’ll accept a federal partner to help close the facility down.
Sierra also noted the wear and tear on city streets from all the trucks coming into the city from other communities, saying it’s a no-brainer to stop this operation.
Councilor Michael Dubois thanked D’Agostino for his usual upfront honesty. The director “heard a fable (on the radio) and added fact to it,” he said.
