Barstow City Council to vote on new ‘biosolids’ contract for Synagro amid health allegations

Charlie McGee, Victorville Daily Press
·2 min read
A weeks-long fire continues smoldering over the 80-acre compost pit at the Synagro composting facility near Hinkley, Calif., on June 28, 2022.
A weeks-long fire continues smoldering over the 80-acre compost pit at the Synagro composting facility near Hinkley, Calif., on June 28, 2022.

The Barstow City Council will vote Monday to keep paying Synagro Technologies Inc. for the next five years to take “biosolids” from a city-run sewage treatment plant.

The meeting will be open to the public with comments starting at 7 p.m. Monday in Barstow City Hall.

One of the final items on the City Council’s agenda for the night is a proposal to award a new “biosolids removal and disposal contract” to Synagro, a Maryland firm owned by a private equity arm of Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that also runs an open-air composting facility less than 10 miles west of Hinkley.

The idea may face controversy as hundreds of Barstow and Hinkley residents have engaged out-of-town lawyers in recent months to join in on lawsuits that are either already filed or planned against Synagro and Goldman Sachs. The focus: alleged health problems caused by a fire in the guts of the 80-acre waste pit that erupted during Memorial Day weekend and fueled rancid air for dozens of miles through the past four months.

If approved, the five-year contract would have Synagro handle the hauling of biosolids – an industry term for semi-cleaned sewage sludge such as human feces – at a cost to city taxpayers of $47.39 per “wet ton” taken from the Barstow Wastewater Treatment Plant, at 2200 E. Riverside Drive.

The City Council agenda says the Baltimore, Maryland-based company’s bid was one of only two received in response to a request for proposals from private contractors that the city sent out July 18 with a deadline of Aug. 15.

Synagro’s proposal is far more lucrative than the other bid, according to the agenda, which says the second option is a $65.50 per “wet ton” proposal from a Bakersfield arm of Houston, Texas-based Holloway Environmental LLC.

Charlie McGee covers California’s High Desert for the Daily Press, focusing on the city of Barstow and its surrounding communities. He is also a Report for America corps member with The GroundTruth Project, an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of journalists in the U.S. and worldwide. McGee may be reached at 760-955-5341 or cmcgee@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @bycharliemcgee.

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Barstow council to vote on new ‘biosolids’ contract for Synagro