Last week's announcement that Klickitat County was closing all four of its brush collection and chipping sites took almost everyone by surprise -- including, no doubt, the drivers of several pickup trucks loaded with limbs we have spotted headed down the hill toward Bingen.
Now that a few days have gone by, the shock has given way to questions. The biggest one might also be the most obvious: Why does Klickitat County expect the Washington Department of Ecology to foot the entire bill for a basic service the county's residents deserve?
The DOE has been contributing roughly $60,000 to cover the annual costs of chipping of the brush and limbs county residents have been bringing to the four sites -- in Lyle, Dallesport, Bingen, and Goldendale. The DOE provides the grant as a way to help keep the air cleaner by reducing the amount of material that is being burned. That benefits all of us.
According to Tim Hopkinson, director of the county's Solid Waste Department, the DOE grant ran out because the sites have become increasingly popular with the public. Because of that, the county has had to pay its contractor more to process all the vegetative material (tree limbs and brush) people are bringing to the sites. The contractor chips and mulches the material, which is then bagged and left for people to pick up for free, to use for landscaping or animal bedding or composting or whatever else they might want to do with it. With more and more people using the sites, however, the money ran out sooner than expected.
But rather than appreciate the fact that the brush chipping service has grown increasingly popular and contribute some funds to help keep it going, the county has taken a backwards approach: waiting for Jan. 1, 2002, when the next Department of Ecology grant kicks in.
That's embarrassing.
The Solid Waste Department has estimated that roughly $30,000 is needed to keep the four sites open over the next four months, and employees there have been working furiously to locate another source of funding to keep the chipping service in place. That's good, because county residents have become attached to this service, and it ought not to be pulled out from under them.
But the Solid Waste Department shouldn't have to look too far for financial help, because, despite its economic problems and relatively high unemployment rates, Klickitat County is not really a "poor" county. Thanks to revenue from the regional landfill at Roosevelt, the county currently has approximately $10.5 million in its cumulative reserve account. Most of that amount comes directly from landfill proceeds.
While we don't claim to be mathematics experts, it sure seems that taking $30,000 or so of that $10.5 million -- that's 0.00286 percent of the total -- in order to keep the brush chipping sites open until January is not too much to ask of our County Commissioners.
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