City

compost

site in

operation

Annual cost is

approximately $30,000

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- If you're looking for a part of city operations that really hasn't been impacted by budget cuts, take a ride out on North Broadway, turn onto the road that runs beside J&R Schugel Trucking company. In a few moments, you'll be at the entrance to the city's compost and burn site.

"It's really the equipment and the labor, and if we're going to offer this service, there's really no way to reduce that. We have to be there to do that," said Street Commissioner Tom Patterson.

In 2003, it cost $30,170 to operate the compost and burn site, and two-thirds of that cost was labor. Last year, the site was open from April 7 to Nov. 15, in operation every day but Sundays and city holidays. This year, the site opened four days earlier, on April 3, and Patterson's plan is to keep it open into November as is permitted by the weather.

So, much of the cost of operating the site depends upon how many days it's open.

"Yes, it certainly does because as long as people are bringing stuff in, we have to go down every morning and push up the pile. Of course, the burn site is the same way. We have to maintain that brush pile and burn when it's appropriate," Patterson explained.

The expense of operating the site was about average, Patterson noted.

"Over the past few years, I think it's always been around between $30,000 and $35,000 a year to do it. Last year, was an average year in terms of cost. There was nothing extraordinary."

Biggest labor cost is for the program monitors who keep an eye on what is being brought in to make sure it complies with site regulations. The four monitors, who are seasonal employees, logged 1,247.25 hours which translated into $10,726.35 in labor costs. Add to that 410.5 hours logged by full-time personnel at a cost of $8,431.67, as well as a 10 percent administrative fee, and you have a total labor cost of $21,073.04.

Equipment rental for a loader, composter and a Unimog truck to pull the composter adds up to a total of $8,320. Miscellaneous costs (for electricity, a Mini-Biff and telephone) total $777.

Patterson is quick to note that the compost site gets a lot of use, too.

In 2003, 16,976 visits were recorded with an estimated 6,257 cubic yards of grass clippings, leaves and other yard waste being dropped off.

"Contrary to what many other cities are doing, there is no charge, and that's getting pretty rare now," Patterson said.

The four monitors split the hours of operation which are from 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

"Right now we have all retired people as monitors, and they split up the hours the way they want," Patterson said.

Because of restrictions imposed upon the city by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources , which issues the burning permit, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, which has input, the site isn't able to accept non-tree and yard waste, Patterson said.

"We can't allow any glass, plastic or dimension lumber or manufactured lumber (or other) building materials. We have a specific permit for burning wood waste so we can't burn things such as building materials. It has to be just primarily tree waste, trimmings and even the tree itself. We also don't take stumps because they burn for days and smolder and smoke," Patterson explained.

There are restrictions on what is accepted for composting, as well.

"Where we're composting yard waste, we cannot take glass or plastic, of course, because that doesn't compost. They also need to separate the wood waste, or the twigs and sticks, from the leaves and grass because they reduce the quality of our finished product."

Patterson said signs listing the restrictions have been posted at the site as a back-up for the monitors who have to watch for such violations. As possible pollution is a serious matter at the site

While the site can't accept plastic for composting, Patterson said it's all right to bring yard waste out to the site in plastic trash bags.

"If they bring it out in (plastic) bags, we request that they slit the bags open and dump (the waste) out onto the pile. They can throw the bags away right there as we supply a container there for them to put their bags in."