Toledo City Council members approved spending $4 million Tuesday to haul away 10,000 truckloads of spent lime — a by-product of the city's water-treatment process — to make room for two new 20-million-gallon-a-day basins.

The vote was was 10-0 to approve the expenditure with council members Matt Cherry and Peter Ujvagi absent.

Custom Ecology of Ohio Inc. of Mableton, Ga., will remove the spent lime over 12 months from a 40-foot deep lagoon and ship it to other places in Ohio to be used as fill or other reuses, said Warren Henry, the city's water program manager.

The cost is included in the $500 million estimate to fix and modernize the Collins Park Water Treatment Plant — the city's low-service pump station — and other improvements along its water treatment system.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources mandated the lagoon embankment be moved to make way for the two new basins, which are part of the plan to increase water-treatment capabilities at the plant.

There are six spent-lime lagoons at the city's drinking-water plant.

City officials have spent millions keeping the lagoons from overflowing.

In January, council unanimously voted to spend up to $4.5 million this year to haul away spent lime from the drinking-water plant.

In other business, council members voted 10-0 to spend $190,000 from the city’s capital improvement fund to purchase radios and body cameras for the police department.

Council also approved a resolution supporting the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department’s plan to create a needle-exchange program.

Contact Ignazio Messina at: imessina@theblade.com or 419-724-6171 or on Twitter @IgnazioMessina.

First Published August 31, 2016, 4:00 a.m.