Waste plan not down drain / A bill in Council would allow a private sludge plant in S.W. Phila.
Source: By Jeff Shields, Philadelphia Inquirer (PA), May 16, 2008
Water Commissioner Bernard Brunwasser says a new, privatized sludge plant in Southwest Philadelphia would reduce the human waste stored on site, require fewer diesel trucks to haul that waste, and eliminate the putrid smell that can extend more than a mile in any direction from under the Platt Bridge.
What seems like an easy sell has been anything but because, in part, it would eliminate 60 union jobs at the city's current "biosolids" plant, a nice name for the not-so-nice mess that comes out of the city's wastewater. The Nutter administration introduced legislation yesterday in City Council that would allow a private partnership, led by the country's largest biosolids contractor, to take over disposal from the city's wastewater treatment facilities.
The initiative, introduced by Mayor John F. Street in early 2006, had stalled because of opposition from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents workers at the current plant. Union officials could not be reached yesterday.