Landfill to Upgrade Wastewater Treatment as Cranston Lawsuit Proceeds

On the heels of Cranston's lawsuit against the Central Landfill for excessive wastewater discharge, the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation has broken ground on a $27 million facility aimed at reducing the pollutant.

The new treatment facility will use biological treatment technology to efficiently treat wastewater before releasing it into municipal sewer systems. The facility will remove nitrogen from the wastewater to meet standards identified by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and the Environmental Protection Agency, RIRRC has said.

“This new facility will help to ensure that Resource Recovery is completely compliant with all modern wastewater treatment standards," RIRRC Executive Director Mike O'Connell told ecoRI news.

The landfill has failed to meet those standards, and various pollutants in RIRRC's wastewater have "increased substantially" in the last decade, according to the city of Cranston's lawsuit against the dump. The suit alleges that Cranston continues to "incur substantial additional costs and expenses" to treat it.

Cranston is asking for the court to order RIRRC to immediately stop discharging into the Cranston plant and to pay unspecified fees and damages caused by handling the polluted wastewater. RIRRC plans to stop sending the wastewater to Cranston once its new treatment facility is completed, instead sending the water to the Narragansett Bay Commission sewer system for final treatment.