Countywide

Facing the prospect of having no place to dispose of sludge, county supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved a $60,000 study on new sites for the liquid waste.

The Otay Landfill is the only county site certified by the Regional Water Quality Control Board to receive sludge. With the capacity of that landfill exhausted, county officials need to develop alternative sites and hope the study will enable them to obtain permission to dump sludge at landfills in Ramona and Sycamore Canyon.

The study, which will cover the expense of environmental and engineering reports intended to determine if disposal of sludge at those two sites would pose a hazard, is expected to be financed through a special fee of four-tenths of a cent per gallon on sludge disposal firms. However, to give companies additional time to comment on the proposed special charge, the supervisors postponed final action on the fee until next week.