Over the last two decades, Synagro Technologies Inc., the Houston company whose contract with Detroit is at the center of an FBI corruption probe touching the City Council, has grown into the nation's largest recycler of sludge and other wastewater treatment byproducts.

The rapid growth has not been without controversy.

Synagro's business of applying treated sewage sludge as fertilizer on land has drawn complaints in several communities, even sparking a lawsuit in Surrey County, Va. Activists mobilized against one of its fertilizer plants in the South Bronx, N.Y., over odors, fires and explosions. In December, the Service Employees International Union launched a campaign against the company, warning that its sewage sludge posed health risks.

Synagro also was criticized in Philadelphia after it and two minority firms contributed nearly $100,000 to local politicians while trying to win approval to privatize the city's sludge plant. They got the contract.

Some Detroit council members are aware of these controversies.

"I did my own research," said Councilmember JoAnn Watson, explaining why she voted against awarding Synagro a city contract to build and operate a southwest Detroit plant that would incinerate sewage sludge. "I just Googled them and saw they had problems in other cities."

Synagro says it's doing nothing wrong. Alvin L. Thomas II, the company's general counsel, said Synagro's critics are "a very small number of very vocal people that don't care to focus on the science."

Last November, when the company won the Detroit contract in a 5-4 City Council vote, officials from Synagro said it would take six to 12 months to get the required state permits and another 27 to 30 months to build the incinerator. So far, Synagro hasn't applied for needed air-quality permits, said Bob McCann of the Department of Environmental Quality.

The company had been rapidly growing its revenues and profits. Its net income more than doubled from 2002 to 2006, reaching $8 million.

Between 1998 and 2006, Synagro added 18 companies, including two in Michigan: National Resource Recovery Inc. of Sparta and Michigan Organic Resources of Grand Rapids.

Last year, it went private as part of a $772-million acquisition by an affiliate of the Carlyle Group, the giant Washington-based buyout firm.

Synagro employs about 1,000 people and serves more than 600 customers, primarily municipalities, in 33 states and the District of Columbia.

Synagro has done work for other communities in Michigan, such as Coopersville and Allendale. In Allendale, the company took a year longer than the city expected to remove 6 million gallons of sludge from its wastewater treatment plant, but "they did a fine job after that," said Steve Boss, the town's water and sewer superintendent.

"Generally they are well-respected," said Ken Kirk, executive director of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, a trade group for 300 municipal wastewater treatment agencies.

Environmental groups see another side to the company. Executives at Sustainable South Bronx and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility said the company wouldn't meet with them or listen to their concerns about the South Bronx fertilizer plant until they became shareholders and got some significant support for a resolution they tried to pass.

Staff writers Tina Lam and Joe Swickard contributed to this report.

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