LITTLE ROCK — A local waste-service company is footing the bill to get Bauxite’s waste water treatment plant operating correctly after it was cited by state authorities for more than 100 violations.

In exchange for footing the cost, Republic Services Inc. hopes to get Bauxite’s sewage plant operating at a level where it can treat water from the Saline County landfill that Republic owns and operates.

“I got a letter in January 2012 from the [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] that said the city has violated its permit 116 times in the past three years,” said Mayor Johnny McMahan, who took office in 2011.

Violations cited included an inappropriate amount of suspended solids, nitrogen, ammonia, fecal coliform bacteria, dissolved oxygen and acidity.

The plant, built in 2003, has a history of violating its permit, McMahan said.

“It’s just gotten worse over the years,” he said. “Bauxite has never had a really true qualified person who knows how to fix things, and they didn’t have the money to hire either.”

Now Republic Services, also known as Allied Waste or Browning Ferris Industries, plans to help the city bring the plant into compliance with environmental rules.

The corporation paid the city’s $1,200 fine to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. It also contracted Terracon, a Kansas-based consulting engineering firm in Bryant, to help train the plant’s workers.

“With all the cost that has been incurred to this point, they have footed the bill for about $10,000,” said Heath Lockley, Terracon project engineer. “That’s from us going to meetings, negotiating with the [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality], paying the fine the city had and for their guys to be trained.”

A transcript from a recent Bauxite City Council meeting says future costs are estimated between $30,000 and $40,000.

In a Jan. 16 consent administrative order demanding that the Bauxite plant comply with its operating permit, the department said a June inspection revealed the plant was treating about 15,000 gallons of water, called leachate, from the landfill daily.

That violated the plant’s permit conditions, which say the department has to be notified about “any change in the facility’s discharge.”

Republic Services can’t dump the landfill’s leachate at the plant until the department authorizes the plant to accept the liquid waste.

The company could save money by sending the leachate in a direct pipe to the Bauxite plant - which it hopes to do when the plant meets its permit conditions - instead of driving it to Bryant to be treated.

“We think it’s a win-win deal,” said Steve Fallon, Republic Services’ general manager. “Bauxite is a little strapped for money and income. So it’s an opportunity for them to treat our leachate and gives them a potential significant source of income.”

Fallon wouldn’t disclose how much leachate the landfill generates annually or how much it costs the company to transport it to Bryant for treatment.

McMahan expects Bauxite to generate about $80,000 to $100,000 per year from treating the landfill’s water, he said.

Though the contract between Republic Services and the city is still in negotiation, the conglomerate has already begun work to fix the plant.

It is paying to fly a representative from Fluidyne Corp., the Iowa-based company that built the plant nine years ago, to Arkansas at a cost of about $2,500, McMahan said. That person will help with training.

The mayor anticipates that a Class 3 or 4 waste water operator is needed to run the plant. The current operator isa Class 2.

Republic is paying a higher classification Terracon operator to make sure the plant runs as it should to meet environmental standards.

The city may have to hire its own operator once the plant complies with its permit parameters, the mayor said, but no decision has been made yet.

If the plant is able to accept leachate in the future, the city won’t charge Republic Services for treating the landfill’s waste water for a period of time until the write-off equals the amount the firm invested, McMahan said.

If the plant doesn’t get to a point where it can accept landfill water, the city doesn’t have to pay back the corporation.

“I’ve had to learn this over the past year. We’re working through it,” McMahan said. “If we didn’t have Republic to help us out, I don’t know what we would do.”

Republic Services has paid for city business before.

When Saline County sold the landfill to the company in 2011, the company agreed to pay $100,000 to repave a road about a mile from the main highway that was in rough condition, McMahan said.

“Sometimes you win when you invest [in a community], sometimes you lose,” Fallon said. “We hope [fixing the plant] helps both us and the city.”

Arkansas, Pages 15 on 02/10/2013