A major sludge-hauling project mandated by the federal government recently wrapped up on time and under budget.
However, a request by Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba to reduce the final cost of the contract by more than $5 million had some council members questioning whether the work was over-priced to start with.
In December, the city council approved a $5.6 million reduction to Jackson’s $13.7 million contract to haul waste from the Savanna Street Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The reduction comes a year and a half after the city brought on the joint venture of Partridge-Sibley Industrial Services and GA Transport (PSI-GA) to haul the waste.
The council praised Lumumba and Public Works Director Bob Miller for the cost savings.
“The mayor should be waving this from every rooftop and singing this from every mountain,” Ward Four Councilman De’Keither Stamps said.
At the same time, members questioned why there was such a discrepancy between the project’s initial and final costs.
“I’m not saying there was fraud here, but I do think there was extreme incompetence. If you tell us (there are) 305,000 (tons of sludge) and we get to hauling and it becomes 100,000, that’s a big difference,” Stamps said.
Ward One Councilman Ashby Foote wants the council’s internal audit committee to look into the matter.
“As head of the internal audit committee, I hope to have (a meeting) once we get to the new year,” he said.
“Obviously, we’ve had some gross miscalculations on how much (sludge) was there.”
Project specifications were drawn up in 2015 by CDM Smith, a private consultant brought on under Yarber.
CDM estimated that there were approximately 305,000 tons of sludge that had to be removed from the site.
Partridge-Sibley’s $13.7 was based on CDM estimates.
Council members also were concerned about the impact price reductions had on the subcontractor, who had to purchase equipment to haul the 305,000 tons.
“They’re not generating enough revenue to cover what they owe on the equipment,” Foote said.
At the heart of the matter was tons and tons of biosolids stored at the Savanna plant.
Over the years, the sludge had built up in the plant’s storm cells, reducing its capacity to handle flow during peak times.
The city had to clean out the cells as part of a sewer consent decree with the federal government.
Jackson entered into a sewer consent decree in 2012. Under the federal agreement, the city was given until December 31, 2017, to remove the biosolids from the plant, or face daily fines for each day the work was not completed beginning January 1 of this year.
Under the decree, the city will likely have to spend between $600 million and $800 million to bring its sewer system into compliance with federal water quality laws.
The Savanna plant cells were cleaned out in late 2014, and the materials were stored in large “geotextile tubes” on Savanna plant property.
Miller said several factors led to CDM’s miscalculations, including that there was limited “real-world data” on the process the city used for de-watering the waste.
“Because of the innovative nature of the application of geotextile tubes … there was minimal real-world, historical data on which to evaluate the expected total solids,” he said.
Miller also pointed to the flooding of the geotextile tube storage area, as well as the amount of time the materials were stored before a PSI-GA was hired.
Before PSI was brought on, pumping systems at the Savanna plant failed, flooding the 60 or so acres where the tubes were located. CDM “made the assumption that water had been reabsorbed by the tubes, thus … increasing the biosolids quantity.”
“Despite this flooded condition, the geotextile tubes did not appear to reabsorb water … resulting in lower than expected final biosolids quantity,” Miller wrote in an e-mail.
Also, materials were further broken down over time through “anaerobic digestion,” while the city struggled with bringing on a hauling contractor.
Anaerobic digestion occurs when microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen, Miller explained.
Jackson officials had hoped to bring on a contractor in 2015. However, one was not hired until mid 2016, amid much controversy.
In 2015, the council twice turned down Yarber’s request to bring on a joint venture that included Garrett Enterprises, a firm tied to Yarber’s former campaign finance chairman, Socrates Garrett.
Garrett served in the position during Yarber’s 2014 run for mayor, a lawsuit filed by a competing firm claimed Yarber was attempting to steer the contract to Garrett as a political favor.
The council agreed to bring on PSI-GA in 2016, after the former mayor said the city was in danger of not meeting consent decree deadlines.
