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Newark, N.J., council votes Wednesday on a $5.92 million sludge-lagoon contract. The only bidder, again, is the Kearny firm that has held it since 2017
Ahead of the vote: nothing in this report has been approved. Jersey Intel will report the council’s vote from the city’s official record.
The Municipal Council in Newark, N.J., is scheduled to vote Wednesday, Oct. 21, on a two-year, $5,919,420 contract to Spectraserv Inc. of Kearny, N.J. The contract covers dredging and hauling sludge from the lagoon at Newark’s Pequannock Water Treatment Plant in West Milford, N.J. Spectraserv was the only company to bid.
A Jersey Intel review of the city’s legislative records found that this is the sixth Pequannock sludge-lagoon contract awarded to Spectraserv since 2017. The price of each new contract has gone from $1,175,000 in 2017 to $5,919,420 now, a little more than five times as much.
Image: Jersey Intel infographic. Photo: Newark City Hall, Paul Sableman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).
- What we know: Resolution 26-1433 (agenda item 7R12-d) would award Contract 06-WS2026 to Spectraserv for up to $5,919,420 over 730 days. Six bid packages went out and one bid came back.
- Why it matters: Four of the six lagoon contracts since 2017 drew a single bid. If this one is approved, the six awards would total about $21 million, including change orders on the earlier ones.
- What’s next: The council meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 920 Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson Blvd.
What the agenda shows
- Vendor: Spectraserv, Inc., 75 Jacobus Ave., Kearny.
- Amount: not to exceed $5,919,420, for 730 calendar days from the notice to proceed. The contract was publicly bid under the Local Public Contracts Law.
- Bids: the city advertised the work on Aug. 27, 2026, and gave out six bid packages. One bid came in on Sept. 17.
- Funding: the chief financial officer certified only $1,000 as currently available. The resolution says the balance is “to be provided in the respective 2026, 2027 and 2028 Adopted Budget.” Newark has not adopted its 2026 budget. The same agenda carries a $41.5 million temporary emergency appropriation for November and a budget amendment the council has deferred three times.
- Scope: according to the city’s Aug. 27 bid notice, the work covers dredging and disposing of sludge from the 48-million-gallon lagoon next to the Charlotteburg Reservoir, on-call sludge removal at the treatment plant, and weekly hauling of dewatered sludge cake from the plant’s residuals facility.
Six contracts, one contractor
| Year | Contract | Bids received | Award | With change orders |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 06-WS2017 (rebid) | 2 (the first round drew 1, which was rejected) | $1,175,000 | $1,425,000 |
| 2019 | 22-WS2019 | 1 | $2,568,000 | none found |
| 2020 | 06-WS2020 | 2 | $2,518,000 | $3,268,000 |
| 2022 | 06-WS2022 | 1 (9 packages out) | $2,767,900 | none found |
| 2024 | 06-WS2024 | 1 (7 packages out) | $5,053,500 | none found |
| 2026 | 06-WS2026 (pending) | 1 (6 packages out) | $5,919,420 | n/a |
The five earlier contracts total $15,082,400 including change orders. If the new one is approved, the total reaches $21,001,820. Jersey Intel’s search of the council’s legislative records found no change orders on the 2019, 2022 or 2024 contracts. That search does not rule out work the council did not have to approve.
The new award is 17.1% higher than the 2024 contract and more than double the 2022 contract.
Before 2017, the lagoon work went to a different firm. Accurate Waste Removal Services of Lake Hopatcong received a $218,000 lagoon contract in 2013, a $2,170,000 emergency sludge-removal contract in December 2013 (later extended to June 2014), and an $855,000 two-year rebid contract in 2015.
Spectraserv also holds other Pequannock plant work. The council awarded it the plant’s “Process and Operational Upgrades” contract (10-WS2020) in 2021 for $19,789,000. Change orders raised it to $20,543,284.08, and later change orders stretched the schedule from 560 days to 1,255 days. In 2020 the city also gave Spectraserv a $180,000 emergency contract to clean the plant’s water-holding basins. In 2025 it was one of two firms that shared a $1 million, two-year contract to maintain mechanical equipment at the city’s water and sewer facilities.
What the city said the work was for
The water department’s project page says the plant now has a new centrifuge system to process sludge. It says the lagoon project is meant “to empty out the sludge lagoon using methods such as dredging or excavation, and use the sludge lagoon for emergencies only.” The same page lists the project cost as $2.7 million.
Questions the documents raise
- Why have so few contractors bid, and did the city ask the companies that picked up bid packages why they didn’t bid?
- How much sludge has been removed under each contract, and how much remains in the lagoon?
- Why is the lagoon still being dredged on two-year cycles if the centrifuge was meant to leave it for emergency use only?
- How much of the $5.92 million is lagoon dredging and how much is the weekly hauling of sludge cake?
- How much has the city paid Spectraserv under the 2024 contract so far?
The response
Jersey Intel emailed questions on Tuesday, Oct. 20, to Kareem Adeem, director of the Department of Water and Sewer Utilities, with copies to the city’s press office and the department’s general inbox. Mark Di Ionno, who identified himself as director of communications for the Newark Water & Sewer Authority, replied the same day. He wrote that answering “will take longer than 24-hour turnaround you request to get you the most accurate information” and that he would discuss the questions with the director and chief engineer and “prepare a response for you by the end of the week.” No answers had arrived by Jersey Intel’s 2 p.m. Wednesday deadline.
Jersey Intel also emailed City Clerk Kecia Daniels on Tuesday, with a copy to the city’s press office, and asked her to forward a request for comment to Council President Luis A. Quintana and the other council members. Neither the clerk’s office nor any council member had responded by the deadline. Spectraserv did not respond by the deadline to an email sent Tuesday to the general contact address on its website.
This story will be updated with any response.
Attend, record or send documents
The council meets at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 920 Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson Blvd. If you attend or record the meeting, or have the bid tabulations, the list of firms that picked up bid packages, or payment records, send them to jerseyintel@gmail.com.
