Excelsior Springs is examining how it should dispose of lime from its water treatment plant.

Per approval by the City Council June 21 at the Hall of Waters, the city has hired Lamp Rynearson to conduct a best professional judgment (BPJ) analysis regarding the issue. Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with offices in Kansas City and Fort Collins, Colorado, Lamp Rynearson provides clients expertise in multiple areas, including aviation and wastewater management, according to its website. Its wastewater-related services include management consultation and crafting plans for facilities, company information states.

Chad Birdsong, city public works director, stated in a June 15 memo to city leaders and reiterated before the vote that the BPJ study will explore five options for lime disposal, including putting “the mechanically dewatered sludge” into a landfill and the city’s current method – pumping the lime into the Missouri River.

According to Birdsong, the study is required by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for renewal of the city’s operating permit for the plant. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has expressed concerns because of the amount of lime the plant is dispersing into the Missouri River, he said.

“The last probably two or three permits, they’ve … (come) back and asked us about it,” Birdsong said. “And the engineers have been able to just tell them, ‘Well, … that’s the best that we can come up with right now.’”

Before the city began pumping water into the river sometime during the 1990s, it regularly put the lime buildup that had collected in its sedimentation basins on farmland, Birdsong recalled during a question-and-answer session. But that disposal method has its problems, he claimed, such as being costly and messy.

“Neighboring property owners don’t like it because then you get that stuff everywhere – and then, when it rains, if you don’t get it incorporated (into the soil), it washes down in streams and it’s all over their farms and gets dusty because it dries out to just, like, powder once it dries out completely,” Birdsong said. “So when you’re discing, it all goes airborne. It’s just a mess to deal with, … (regardless) of what you do to it.”