City set to spend $500K to move 'free' Schwan's dirt to needed places in Salina

The City of Salina discovered that free dirt doesn't come cheap as it plans to spend more than half-a-million dollars to transport soil from the Schwan's construction site to places in town.

Monday, the Salina City Commission approved a proposal to have T&R Construction, a Salina company that was the low bidder for the project, haul the large soil stockpile created as part of the expansion project at the pizza-manufacturing facility to three different city-owned locations in need of soil.

"(Schwan's) did contact the city manager's office and offered the soil for free, if we would pay the cost of loading and hauling it off," said Jim Kowach, operations manager for the city's public works department.

The approximately 80,000 cubic yards of soil was created as part of the construction of a detention pond at the site.

Kowach said one of the sites that is in need of soil is the Salina Municipal Solid Waste Landfill which is within a few miles of the location of the current stockpile.

"Free is free and it really doesn't get much cheaper (or) get much closer to the landfill," Kowach said.

Kowach said the landfill is in need of around 250,000 to 375,000 cubic yards over the next five years, so having a known source to add from is helpful.

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Where else does the city need soil?

In addition to the current landfill, Kowach said the city is also in need of soil at the old city dump site, located on State Street, for remediation purposes.

"It's property that, since we dumped it there, we own it for life," Kowach said. "We've been under order from (the Kansas Department of Health and Environment) for the last several years to provide new cover for that."

Kowach said as he was getting bid quotes together from companies to haul the soil, it was brought to his attention that there was a possibility of needing soil at Jerry Ivey Memorial Park to fill in the pond there that has been plagued with a blue-green algae issue for several years.

"Working with (Parks and Recreation Director) Jeff Hammond, he said they wanted to stockpile the soil," Kowach said.

The city commission is still in the process of determining what will replace the Jerry Ivey pond, so the plan would be to keep 6,000 cubic yards of the Schwan's soil at the park until it was needed for the pond.

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Free isn't necessarily free

Kowach said purchasing and hauling soil would usually cost the city around $10 a cubic yard in contractor fees, but since the dirt is being given for free, it will cost the city from just over $6 a yard to $7.45 a yard, depending on which of the three sites it will be going, meaning the city is still paying a total of $523,380 to haul the dirt.

Fortunately, the city departments that will be using the soil both have the funding available for this project, with solid waste contributing around $478,000 and parks and rec contributing around $44,000.

"The solid waste side has a good fund balance (and) parks said they have available funds in their operating budget for this soil," Kowach said.

The commission voted unanimously for the proposal, saying it was the right decision to take this opportunity from Schwan's.

"It's a lot of money for free dirt but (I understand the need)," said Commissioner Bill Longbine.

This article originally appeared on Salina Journal: Salina spending $500K to move dirt from Schwan's site