Cleaning costs for Chehalis' Coal Creek Settling Basin cleaning increased after regular cleaning not performed for more than a year

The cost to clean up and remove solid waste from the Coal Creek Settling Basin in Chehalis rose this year as regularly scheduled solid waste removal and maintenance had been neglected for a year and a half, according to Chehalis Wastewater Superintendent Justin Phelps.

The Coal Creek Settling Basin acts as a holding facility for backwash water from the city’s water filtering plant. The majority of the solid waste collected consists of silt, twigs or other leafy materials collected from the city’s water source.

Phelps spoke about the issue during the Chehalis City Council meeting on Monday, July 8, as he sought council approval to pay for the increased cost.

Normally, solid waste removal and maintenance is normally conducted biannually, with the city budgeting between $15,200 and $22,800 — or $0.19 per gallon of solid waste — to pay for it, along with paying for the cost of hauling the solid waste away.

A year and a half ago, the former superintendent, Riley Bunnell, ran into issues with the Washington state Department of Health finding new land to haul the solids too.

“The reason why it had taken so long to be able to get that is because there’s a process that went with that, and that’s the reason why we have an increased cost of removal of those solids,” Phelps said. “If we don’t remove those solids, what happens is they start to burp up and then that actually goes out to the Chehalis River.”

After finally cleaning the Coal Creek Settling Basin recently, the actual cost to clean and haul away the solid waste totalled $44,199.30 after tax.

“In all actuality, if we had cleaned it out last year, we would’ve spent around $20,000. So, we’re going to spend about the same amount of money. We’re just extracting it all out in one year,” Chehalis City Councilor Bob Spahr said.

Due to the cost being over $40,000, council approval was required to make the payment. The council discussed some possible ways of recovering the lost funds needed to pay for the increased solid waste removal cost, including letting the solids dry out to sell as fertilizer.

“Finding ways to actually get it dried out is obviously becoming an issue,” Chehalis City Manager Stacy Denham said. “But when I was talking to Justin, figuring out a way to do like Centralia is doing, being able to dry out some of these solids and put them through the process of selling it like you’re talking about, that is a huge process in the making. We may or may not be able to do this. We’re going to find that out.”

Chehalis Public Works Director Lance Bunker added that haul costs would still apply, and processing the solid waste in order to sell it might not be cost effective.

Following the brief discussion, the council unanimously approved the payment for the increased cost of cleaning and removing the solid waste from the Coal Creek Settling Basin.