A limb for leaf pickup

It's not exactly like Sen. John McCain saying 'the fundamentals of our economy are strong' while the financial world melted around him, but Athens-Clarke County Manager Alan Reddish's statement that only a handful of neighborhoods remained on the community's leaf and limb pickup schedule is already causing some headaches.

Of course, Reddish's statement given to the commission appears to be less than accurate.

As both I and Hillary noted, leaf and limb debris remained throughout the Boulevard area, while commenters at the Athens Banner-Herald said that various eastside streets still had not been picked up. Likewise, in a letter to the editor today, Ron Evans gave a detailed listing of areas that still had not been picked up.

Athens-Clarke County is approaching its fifth month of addressing the clean-up after the March 1 storm that dumped more than six inches of snow across Northeast Georgia, and the frustration with the response has been steadily growing.

According to various sources, one of the inquiries made to staff was the possibility of waiving the fees charged to individuals who bring their yard waste to the landfill. This was dismissed, however, out of concern of abuse.

Jim Corley, the solid waste director for the community, told me via an email exchange that out of previous troubles with fee waivers, he wasn't too high on the idea. He said the landfill receives no tax supports and the fees support its operation, including fees charged to the leaf and limb division of the government. As a result, in Corley's words, waiving the fee would allow individuals 'to be subsidized by others as the general fund of the government then has to pay for those that choose to self haul their materials.'

In addition, Corley said the landfill does not have sufficient personnel to effectively monitor the leaf and limb pile to check and make sure folks aren't bringing in prohibited items. He added the bulk of the previous problems when fees were waived were with self haulers.

In Oconee County, the waiver of fees for self hauling was one of two primary strategies aimed to remove the debris from the streets. According to personnel at the landfill, the fees were waived for all leaf and limb for approximately a month. To protect against abuse, two individuals were positioned at the facility's weighing station to check all vehicles.

While Corley said that previous experiences had deterred him from embracing or encouraging a fee waiver, he also noted that it wasn't within his authority to do so anyway ...

ACC has waived the fees in the past. It is a Mayor and Commission decision as the fee is an ACC Code.

Corley noted that his department was authorized to hire additional trucks in May, which was necessary given the demand ...

In early May we were authorized to hire additional trucks to assist with the cleanup of the debris. They have been working with us since that time. Most governments are not set up to handle extraordinary events such as this. The cost to have excess trucks and personnel for once in a decade or more event would be irresponsible.

Now, viewing the responses between the two counties is not an apples to apples comparison for a variety of reasons. Athens-Clarke County offers regular leaf and limb pickup through its public services, and it's a substantially larger community. Likewise, Corley argued the community faced more severe storm damage then the surrounding counties, thus increasing the tonnage it had to deal with.

There's considerable truth to that argument. Said Corley ...

To date since the storm we have collected more than 5,600 tons of material and over 8,200 tons for the fiscal year (Jul 1- June 30). The most we have ever collected in a previous storm year was 6028 tons.

The scope of the damage was far greater than anything the department has had to deal with, thus compounding the difficulties with the response. Still, the efficiency in the Oconee County response stands in contrast to the tedious one in Athens-Clarke County. In addition to the fee waiver, it also sent out trucks to conduct debris pickups, despite not offering leaf and limb pickup as a regular service to county residents (city residents of Watksinville, however, do have pickup service).

Most debris in Oconee County were picked up or delivered to the landfill within one month of the storm. Again, however, it's important to view this through the prism of size and scope as there were considerably more properties to service in Athens-Clarke County than Oconee County.