Alliance to find private operator to run topsoil program

ALLIANCE ‒ For ages, the city has recycled human waste, creating topsoil for farms.

It is a common practice. Lots of garden fertilizers have it.

At least 90 places in Stark County have state permits to work with Class A biosolids (treated human waste) for beneficial use. Alliance is one. There also are Class B biosolids, which can be harmful due to pathogens, that are sent to landfills.

In Alliance, city officials aren't planning to discontinue the program, but they want to change who runs it.

Safety-Service Director Mike Dreger said the city is planning to lease 31 acres of property − the topsoil field - adjacent to the city's wastewater treatment plant on Rockhill Avenue to a third-party. He said a private operation will do the work.

Dreger said there are different regulations for public and private soil blenders. He said they are "far more restrictive" for public. He said private blenders can better maintain compliance with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

City Council approved legislation on Monday night to seek bids on the lease.

"The city is motivated toward soil blending to assure beneficial reuse of the biosolids as opposed to seeing the biosolids landfilled," Dreger said in an email.

What are the benefits of biosolids?

Done right, biosolids offer a lot of benefits.

"Biosolids are a product of the wastewater treatment process where liquids are separated from solids. The solids are treated physically and chemically to produce a semisolid, nutrient-rich product," according to the Ohio EPA.

For example, biosolids have helped with lawns, home gardens, farms, timber growth in forests and reclamation sites, like brownfields.

The Ohio EPA supports the "beneficial use of biosolids instead of discarding them in landfills, when possible," adding the "goal of our biosolids program is to protect public health and the environment and minimize nuisance odors," agency spokesman Anthony Chenault said in an email.

In Alliance, Dreger said the city makes "exceptional biosolids" to blend with fill dirt, and has offered the topsoil for free. It also has provided biosolids, or treated human waste, to a limited number of private soil blenders.

"The hope in offering a lease of the property is to find an operator who can, in turn, utilize a majority of the biosolids produced in the production and marketing of topsoil," he said.

"Any revenue generated is largely a function of marketing and transportation, and would go to the private soil blender."

Reach Benjamin Duer at 330-580-8567 or ben.duer@cantonrep.com . On X (formerly Twitter): @bduerREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Alliance to find private operator to run topsoil program