(Spirit Lake)– The long term feasibility of the tree dump site at the county’s recycling center east of Milford was a topic of discussion at today’s (Tues.) Board of Supervisors meeting.
Supervisor Kim Wermersen represents the board on the county’s Recycling Commission, which oversees the center along with the Dickinson County Conservation Board. He says the center is getting overwhelmed with trees, adding the problem is about to get worse…
“We’ve got one coming that we’re hearing they’re going to have 100 side dumps of trees. The chipping of those trees is an astronomical cost.”
Wermersen says there’s concern over the long term feasibility of the tree disposal operation at the center…
“It’s the commercial dumps that are really eating this thing alive. The ma and pop kind of people that are trimming their trees, that’s a different deal. This is commercial stuff. We would either have to buy a scale to weigh it to accurately charge them, the cost of that is about $400,000, plus you’re going to have to have another person hired, or we could get a chipper which is even more expensive than that, and by the way, to repair those consistently is a big challenge. That’s why we’re looking at partnering with the landfill and seeing what they could do because they actually could use a lot of the chips themselves out at the landfill.”
Wermersen says there’s another possible option that could be considered which he says wouldn’t be fair to the average Dickinson county resident…
“We could go and the assessments that we have on everybody, we could quadruple that, but why would us, who don’t use that service, aren’t a commercial business, pay for commercial folks to dump it out there? It just doesn’t make sense.”
The county’s recycling center is staffed by one person. Wermersen says depending upon what option would eventually be pursued, it would likely result in the need for additional personnel at the site, which would also result in increased costs to the county. He says the Recycling Commission will continue to look at possible alternatives.
