DEQ ID’s disputed transfer station waste as acceptable materials with possible odor issues that could be rejected

A Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) inspection of the Town of Front Royal’s Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) in reaction to an inquiry by the Warren County Sheriff’s Office regarding suspicions of untreated sewage at the Bentonville transfer Station appears to have cleared the Town of any wrongdoing. Reports regarding the transfer station at tonight’s Warren County Board of Supervisors Meeting by both Sheriff Mark Butler and County Public Works Director Mike Berry may add additional light on the matter.

But according to the DEQ official who made that inspection the day after what has become a contentious interaction between the sheriff and deputies and a Town garbage truck crew bringing “grit and screenings” sewage from the WWTP to the County’s Bentonville transfer station along with residential trash, there has been an agreement that the Town will no longer bring those materials to the Bentonville site. Rather, they will be transported by a contracted hauler directly to the Battle Creek Landfill in Page County, which is their ultimate destination, along with other sewage or sludge materials the local transfer station is not licensed to take.

The first official on either side of the dispute that Royal Examiner was able to reach Tuesday was Assistant Town Attorney George Sonnett, who was present during the April 21^st DEQ inspection of the Town WWTP. Asked about an agreement on the direct shipment of the disputed waste to the Page County site, Sonnett said, “At this time I’m not aware of an alternative. It has been rejected – what choice do we have?”

The Bentonville Solid Waste Transfer Station, the Town’s perceived ‘Pearl Harbor’ of alleged County hostilities against it and a solid waste truck crew. Well, it doesn’t look like the USS Arizona and it wasn’t ‘sunk’ on April 20; however, the mayor has conveyed great and vast umbrage at what he asserts was aggressively hostile treatment of its crew. Royal Examiner File Photos by Roger Bianchini (unless otherwise indicated)

DEQ Water Permits & Compliance Manager Brandon Kiracofe said treated materials he inspected April 21 at the Town’s WWTP matched acceptable, non-sewage-sludge materials. “Based on my experience they were consistent with what I’ve seen there (Bentonville) and elsewhere being accepted” according to treated sewage standards, Kiracofe told Royal Examiner by phone on May 10.

However, passages in a 2007 DEQ outline of processes related to disposal of various levels of treated sewage provided to Royal Examiner by the Town may offer a clue to the evolving situation here.

“If odor from grit and screenings becomes an issue at a landfill, then the waste inspector should: 1/ Remind the landfill that they can reject any load,” the February 26, 2007 memo from DEQ Water Quality Division Director Ellen Gilinsky and Waste Division Director Karen Jackson Sismour tells regional water compliance and waste program managers. And while the Bentonville site is no longer a landfill, one might guess that as a transfer station to Page County’s Battle Creek Landfill, the same right of refusal would come into play.

But that treated and dried “grit and screening” byproducts of the Town’s Wastewater Treatment Plant would be acceptable at the Bentonville Transfer Station is also indicated in the 2007 DEQ waste disposal process outline: “DEQ has deemed that grit and screenings do not fall under the definition of ‘sludge’ and therefore the stabilization requirement for sludge (which the Bentonville station is not licensed to accept, but Page County’s is) does not apply to grit and screenings from a wastewater treatment plant.”

So, it would appear that Mayor Holloway is correct when he said the Town has been cleared of any wrongdoing, particularly of a criminal nature, regarding the dumping of materials at the Bentonville site. We may find out if Sheriff Butler agrees tonight.

Above, now-Mayor Holloway, left, along with then-Mayor Tewalt, gets some consultation from Revolutionary War reenactors during late 2019 hanging of memorial plaque in honor of Gen. Joseph Warren for whom the county is named. Hopefully, the war of words surrounding Sheriff Butler’s handling of questions about what was being dumped by the Town at the Bentonville Transfer Station won’t escalate into a reenactment of the war that ended Joseph Warren’s life, as portrayed in the memorial art.

However, it would also appear that the County is within its right to reject loads of grit and screening if odor has become an issue with staff or patrons at the transfer station. Following the above-referenced exception of grit and screenings from being defined as sludge and prefacing that first bullet point right of rejection of treated loads, the 2007 DEQ document also states: “However, improperly maintained or operated grit and screening devices can produce waste that has a higher organic content that can contribute to odors at a landfill” continuing to encourage DEQ regional managers to work with staffs at the treatment and receiving end of sewage products “to ensure proper treatment of this material.”

However, with the current level of contentious hostility between the two municipalities over the County’s handling of the initial complaint with a law enforcement investigation of a perceived threatening nature to a Town solid waste truck crew, such a cooperative effort may not be in the offing. See Royal Examiner’s linked story “Town demands ‘reparations’, firings, and threatens ‘legal action’ for alleged ‘Sludge War’ on solid waste crew” for a full accounting of the evolution of that hostility expressed in an April 29 Town press release and letter to County Board Chair Cheryl Cullers, signed by Mayor Chris Holloway.

Images from the April 21, DEQ WWTP site visit and investigation of County complaint: above “Commingled screenings and grit” from the WWTP Raptor unit receiving and treating septage from county septic systems; below, “Screenings from the bar screen” at WWTP treating waste from the Town of Front Royal’s sewer system. They’re both acceptable at transfer station unless remoisturized the odor becomes too much of an issue on the receiving end. Photos Courtesy DEQ

That letter notifies the county board chair of cancellation of all future joint Town-County meetings pending satisfaction of a list of demands, including the firing of Interim County Administrator Ed Daley and resignation of Sheriff Mark Butler.

Stay tuned for the next chapter of “(It’s not) Sludge Wars” as Sheriff Mark Butler and County Public Works Director Mike Berry weigh in during tonight’s Warren County Board of Supervisors Work Session following scheduled EDA-related Closed Sessions beginning at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.