Lots of sand, no day at the beach

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This is a head-scratcher for Greg Reeder.

The public works director for Council Bluffs has to figure out what to do with tons of sand left from sandbagging against historic Missouri River flooding.

It should be simple: Spread it over city streets this winter. Sell it to a concrete plant. Pile it up as a freebie to local residents.

But nothing from the Flood of 2011 is that simple.

"Until we get it in a big pile, it's more trouble than it's worth," Reeder said.

More than a million bags have been filled in the metropolitan area, and that's not including the large bags or those filled by utilities.

Laid end to end, just those smaller, typically 40-pound, bags would stretch from downtown Omaha to well west of Kearney, Neb. Add in the larger bags and the sand used by utilities and more sand has been used in the flood fight than Ash Grove Cement Co. consumes in an entire year at its plant in Louisville, Neb.

This week, officials are drawing up bids for contractors to collect the bags that had been used in public places, such as Eppley Airfield, and at sewer and water plants and fire stations.

Most of the cost of collecting the bags, like the cost of making them, probably will be covered by federal disaster aid, federal officials say. The rest will be covered by local and state taxpayers and the other entities that need them removed.

Mostly, contractors will collect the bags, take them to central locations in each community, rip them open and create huge piles of sand. The bags themselves will be taken to a landfill.

It will be some time before the sandbags are gone and the costs tallied. Reeder and other officials estimated that the work generally won't start until October because the bidding process must play out.

The future of a good portion of the sand piles remains unclear.

For the record, environmental officials on both sides of the river say the sand can be reused.

Based on tests after past flooding in the Midlands, there's no reason to believe the sand should be considered hazardous, said David Haldeman of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.

"There's a lot of dilution that takes place," he said.

Clean sand, untouched by floodwater, can be used without limitation, Haldeman said.

However, sand that has come into contact with floodwater or storm runoff should be used only in places where people won't come into direct contact with it, officials in both states said.

Generally, that means the sand can be used as fill.

Most of the sand in the metro area never came into contact with floodwater, say officials with Omaha, the Bluffs and those protecting Sarpy County.

More than half of Omaha's sand is clean and can be used at parks and other public facilities, said Marty Grate of the Public Works Department. The sand will be used over the next couple of years at the city's more than 200 playgrounds and to top-dress putting greens, said Melinda Pearson, city parks director.

The rest will be used as fill, including to elevate an area at the city's composting facility.

"We hope to use all of it, in one way or another," Grate said.

Eppley Airfield is in the same boat as Council Bluffs: Tons of sand without a practical use.

David Roth, director of planning and engineering at Eppley, said the sand can't be spread on runways in the winter because bits of bags that didn't get screened out could get sucked into planes' engines.

"We need to have pure sand. It can't be contaminated," Roth said.

What about other seemingly logical uses locally?

» City streets in winter? Most major cities are loath to use large quantities of sand on streets because it clogs sewers and streams, the latter creating water quality problems.

"There's way more sand than we could ever use for winter maintenance," Reeder said.

» Concrete companies? More than 53,000 tons of sand was used last year at Ash Grove, south of Omaha, but most of the sand used to fight flooding is too fine for use in concrete, said spokeswoman Jacqueline Clark.

» A big sandpile for the public? Sure, some people would love to get free sand. But Reeder said experience has shown that such public areas must be staffed to keep people from illegally dumping refrigerators, mattresses and other trash.

The Bluffs is still mulling its options, and Eppley may stockpile the sand for use later.

The Omaha and Nebraska Public Power Districts plan to use the sand for fill or future flood protection, spokesmen said.

In Sarpy County, the Papio-Missouri River Natural Resources District hopes to use a significant share of its sand to shore up Missouri River levees that protect Offutt Air Force Base and an Omaha sewer treatment plant.

"We're hoping we can use it to bolster the levees. It's an excellent material," said Marlin Petermann, the Papio NRD assistant general manager.

Sand works well because it allows water to filter through, relieving pressure, but traps soil, lessening the likelihood that the escaping water will erode the levee, he said. The sand would be used on the dry side of the levees to blanket and weigh down areas where seepage occurred.

But even sand that came into contact with floodwater can be piled together and exposed to the elements for some natural cleansing, Iowa officials said.

That, at least in the short term, is what the Bluffs will do, Reeder said.

"Nothing's off the table, but it's challenging," he said.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1102, nancy.gaarder@owh.com


Watch a crew remove the sandbags that were protecting Interstate 29 south of Onawa:

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