Woonsocket Officials Look to Burn Contracts and Sell Off Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant

Woonsocket has had enough.

Enough of the stink that stretches for miles and lingers for days. Enough of the sewage-laden trucks rumbling down local roads. Enough of the environmental fines, the lawsuits, the contract disputes and costly equipment repairs.

“The quality of life in this city has suffered long enough,” Woonsocket Mayor Christopher Beauchamp said in a recent interview. “We don’t want to be the disposal of everyone else’s waste.”

After more than a century under city ownership, Beauchamp and the Woonsocket City Council are looking to wash their hands of the Woonsocket Wastewater Treatment Facility: They want to shut down the incineration arm that burns dried waste, and sell off the sewage treatment segment. An Aug. 25 resolution unanimously approved by the City Council authorizes negotiations to transfer the plant title and permits to the Narragansett Bay Commission, a quasi-public agency that already runs the largest wastewater operations in the state.

The resolution is preliminary and nonbinding, dependent on the agreement of the Narragansett Bay Commission and of the two private companies under contract to manage Woonsocket’s wastewater treatment plan into the next decade. Also a key consideration: the financial implications for a cash-strapped city that brings in money from treating waste throughout the region, while getting free access for its own sewage.

“It’s like playing 20 games of chess at the same time,” City Solicitor Michael Lepizzera said. “It’s going to take a long time. There are a lot of parts and people involved.”

But Lepizzera thinks the payoff could be worth the challenge.

“This could be a generational change,” Lepizzera said.

Once heralded as a pinnacle of engineering ingenuity and government self-sufficiency, the sprawling, riverfront sewage plant has soured with time. Aging equipment demands costly fixes, or even costlier environmental and legal fees when malfunctions lead to water and air pollution.

Look no further than the series of complaints about untreated sewage pouring into the Blackstone River beginning in 2021, culminating in a March 2023 lawsuit by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Office against the city and the companies contracted to run the plant. Four months later, a second lawsuit: this time, a federal class-action case from local residents alleging the smells emanating from the plant have hurt their property values and quality of life. Both cases remain pending, according to court records.

The City Council’s resolution, sponsored by Council President Dan Gendron, points to the drain on financial and legal resources from the protracted legal battles.

And while the immediate pollution concerns appear resolved thanks to emergency equipment purchases — for which the city is still repaying the debt — the bill keeps growing.

The incineration arm still requires “substantial upgrades and infrastructure improvements,” to the tune of $40 to $50 million, the City Council resolution states. Neighbors are still filing complaints over the smell.

However, wriggling out of the contracts with the companies hired to run the operations might not be costly or hard. Synagro Woonsocket LLC, the company hired to oversee the incinerator, has indicated it would be open to cutting the 20-year contract off, according to multiple city officials.

“They’re spending a lot of money on legal fees,” Lepizzera said of the two private contractors. “Eliminating these contracts might be beneficial to them.”

Jennifer Cervenka, an attorney for Synagro, did not return multiple inquiries for comment. Jacobs Engineering Group, which oversees the wastewater treatment side of the plant, also did not respond to requests for comment.

Both vendors signed 20-year contracts with the city in 2012, guaranteeing their work and income from services provided through 2032, according to contracts previously obtained by Rhode Island Current through a public records request.

However, the agreements also offer all parties legal exit routes, including for potential negligence — something Beauchamp sees as a firm rationale given the sewage spills that led to the state lawsuit.

“Synagro has not kept up their end of the bargain in fixing that plant,” Beauchamp said.

Lepizzera was reluctant to “disregard” the legally binding agreements with Synagro and Jacobs. He looks to find a mutually beneficial resolution that would allow the city to shut down the incinerator and sell the treatment plant for the right price.

Much hinges on the terms of a potential sale to the Narragansett Bay Commission, or another owner. Lepizzera declined to name a dollar figure, but wanted a price that covers the city’s $29 million debt on the money it borrowed to pay for plant upgrades last year, and to offset the lost revenue it gets from treating sewage for more than dozen other cities, companies and wastewater plants across the region.

The city brings in $3 million in annual host fees from the two contractors plus a share of royalties from incineration up to $600,000 a year under its contracts with Synagro and Jacobs. And, Woonsocket has its waste treated for free.

“All of that is going to be part of the equation,” Lepizzera said. “If NBC doesn’t give us the best deal and bang for our buck, and protect our community, we could go in another direction.”

Jamie Samons, a Narragansett Bay Commission spokesperson, declined to comment on specific terms of an agreement, noting that negotiations are just beginning.

“Should NBC and Woonsocket reach a mutually beneficial agreement, these communities — and all who enjoy the Blackstone River — will benefit from NBC’s nationally recognized excellence in clean water operations, financial stewardship and community engagement,” Samons said in an emailed response. “In the coming months, NBC staff and Board of Commissioners will work closely with key stakeholders to conduct thorough due diligence. If a transfer is approved, NBC is committed to making the transition as seamless and transparent as possible.”

Narragansett Bay Commission has proven its skill in transforming struggling municipal wastewater treatment facilities into nationally acclaimed success stories, first with the Field’s Point Wastewater Treatment Facility in Providence in 1982, and a decade later, East Providence’s Bucklin Point Wastewater Treatment Facility. The award-winning clean water agency now provides wastewater treatment services to more than 400,000 state residents, while investing in large-scale capital projects to protect Narragansett Bay from sewage during heavy rainfalls.

“They’re one of the best, if not the best, operated wastewater treatment facilities in the state,” said Joseph Habarek, administrator of surface water protection for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. “Overall, they have an excellent compliance record.”

At the time Synagro took over the Woonsocket incinerator in 1988, it too received acclaim from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for transforming a hearth furnace combustion system into one that uses electricity and a wet flushing system to treat solid waste. Subsequent upgrades turned the local incineration facility into a regional powerhouse, able to burn up to 105 tons of dried waste a day, 90% of which comes from government and commercial customers across Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The remaining 10% is Woonsocket’s own waste.

But as its customer base grew, so did the fines and penalties. Synagro Woonsocket was fined $175,000 by the Department of Environmental Management in 2018 for excess pollutants and chemicals found in the water, including cyanide, dating back to 2014. In 2021, a different subsidiary of the Baltimore-based company reached a $373,660 settlement with the EPA for violating federal air pollution protections at its Woonsocket plant. In July 2022, nine months before the state lawsuit, Synagro entered into another settlement with state environmental watchdogs for pollution problems with the incinerator, agreeing to pay $20,000 for water treatment improvements in the Blackstone River, along with investing in infrastructure upgrades to its incinerator.

Since the state lawsuit in March 2023, the plant has remained under close monitoring by environmental regulators, with monthly inspections of operations and bacteria and pollutant discharge levels.

In 2024, the plant exceeded maximum state discharge allowances for phosphorus in the water for six consecutive months, leading to several warnings, but no fines, because the issues were considered “minor,” Haberek said.

“Overall, they’re doing better,” Haberek said. “Broad-brush, they’ve been meeting their permit limits.”

Odor complaints have persisted, though fewer than at the peak in 2023. Jacobs received 25 complaints about smells from the wastewater plant through July of this year — less than 25% of 107 documented in 2024, and under one-fifth of the 132 complaints made in 2023, according to an Aug. 12 report to the City Council.

Transferring ownership of the sewage treatment service might reduce these occurrences, but it’s unlikely to scrub them entirely. Even the best-run wastewater treatment plants have occasional smells and discharge levels that exceed state permit caps, Haberek said.

What is guaranteed if the city shutters its incinerator: Dozens of local governments, manufacturers and other wastewater treatment facilities — including the Narragansett Bay Commission — will be forced to find an alternative place to send their sewage byproducts.

“We all rely on the Woonsocket incinerator as a disposal option,” Haberek said. “That would be problematic if they were to stop accepting biosolids.”

The Cranston Wastewater Treatment Facility is the only other wastewater treatment plant in Rhode Island with an incinerator, but it does not have capacity to handle Woonsocket’s load, Haberek said.

Beauchamp was unconcerned.

“Let everybody else figure it out,” he said. “It’s about time we put Woonsocket first.”

The city has not yet notified its municipal and commercial customers about the tentative plan to shut down the incinerator. However, last year, the City Council approved a separate, non-binding resolution to stop accepting liquid sludge from other cities and towns and companies, instead limiting its services to the already dried “cakes.” The switch, if made, would have affected about half of the existing incinerator customers. But it never advanced beyond the May 22, 2024, council vote.

Lepizzera stressed that any changes, including closure of the incinerator and transfer of the wastewater treatment plant to a new owner, would not take effect immediately.

Gendron, the City Council president, does not share the same timeline.

“I would hope it would be done by Friday of this week,” Gendron said. “I am worried first about the health and well-being of the residents of Woonsocket. That’s where my real priority lies.”

Also factored into the calendar calculations: the July 1, 2027, deadline by which the city is contractually required to assume maintenance of the incinerator from Synagro, although the latter would continue to provide daily operating service through 2032 under the existing contract.

Beauchamp wants the transfer deal done before then.

“We know this incinerator is not going to get any better unless you put money into it,” he said. “We certainly don’t have that money. We don’t want to spend that money.”

This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.