Officials looking to resolve sludge lawsuit

City officials plan to take action within the next couple of months to resolve a lawsuit with the company that made fertilizer pellets from sludge processed at Kingston’s wastewater treatment plant.

“I anticipate that we’ll be making a motion that could potentially bring this to a resolution...,” city Corporation Counsel Kevin Bryant told aldermen during a caucus meeting Monday. He said later he planned to take that action within the next couple of months.

During the caucus meeting, aldermen were considering a resolution that would transfer $110,000 within the wastewater treatment facility’s budget to pay attorney’s fees for the litigation against Tarrytown-based Aslan Environmental Services.

The Common Council on Tuesday adopted a resolution authorizing that transfer. The vote was 8-0 with Alderman Douglas Koop, DWard 2, absent.

Bryant said there were a number of contractual issues from the beginning of the deal with Aslan and he anticipated many would be resolved by the court.

“But, once this is resolved, this could be extremely beneficial to the city, to say the least,” Bryant said.

In 2004, the Common

Council at the time and thenMayor James Sottile agreed to lease pelletizer equipment from Aslan for use at the city’s wastewater treatment plant on East Strand. The agreement called for Kingston to pay Aslan $19,600 per month, with an increase of 3 percent each year. A year later, the contract was extended until December 2020.

Since September 2015, though, the city has been sending its sludge to the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency because the equipment used to convert the matter to fertilizer pellets broke down and was not repaired.

Both the city and Aslan claim in the lawsuit the

other side breached the contract. The city is seeking to sever the contract. The lawsuit is being heard in state Supreme Court.

Common Council President James Noble said the issue involves who was responsible for maintaining the equipment the city leases from Aslan. He said some major maintenance needed would be very costly.

“We’ve had some equipment that they didn’t want to accept responsibility for even though the contract and the negotiations suggested they should,” Bryant added. He said the litigation has cost Kingston approximately $110,000 to $130,000.