Fairfield closes compost site

FAIRFIELD – The Fairfield City Council has decided to close the compost site until further notice.

The council made the decision at its meeting Monday, Aug. 12 after Street Superintendent Joe Hird recommended the closure. He said his department had been spending too much money and energy maintaining the compost site under the old rules, where the site was open over the weekend from 3 p.m. Friday until 7 a.m. Monday, with residents also able to have their trucks loaded with mulch Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 3 p.m.

For more than a decade, Fairfield residents were able to drop off yard waste and pick up free mulch from the compost site, located at the southern edge of South 20 th Street beyond the Fairfield school district’s ACT building. However, last October the council voted to restrict the hours of the compost site to weekends only, in an effort to stop contractors from dumping logs and other debris that can’t go through a tub grinder used to make mulch. Unfortunately for the town’s residents, that change proved to be insufficient to curb the problem.

Hird told The Union that he’s thinking through possible solutions where the city can maintain this service in some form.

“I’m in the process right now of gathering information for several possible plans to serve the community in the future,” Hird said. “The time and energy this [compost site] is to the street department is beyond what it should be, and we need another solution. Residents still have the option to use Waste Management for sticks. That never went away, and it will be part of one of the plans we move forward with.”

Hird said the city rents a tub grinder once or twice a year to grind all the yard waste into mulch. He said the city has a few years’ worth of mulch now, since only a small percentage of residents take advantage of the free mulch.

For residents looking for an opportunity to get rid of their yard waste, they should know about the city’s fall brush pick-up on Monday, Oct. 7. Hird said the rules for the fall brush pick-up will be similar to past years, except that this year the city is telling residents that brush piles will be limited in size to “one pick-up load” or about 4x4x8 feet in dimensions. Brush piles should not include branches larger than 8 inches in diameter or 13 feet in length.

Pick-up does not include leaves and grass clippings. City yard waste bags can be purchased at Hy-Vee customer service and will be picked up on regular trash days. The city asks residents to place brush away from poles, fences, water shut-offs and trees.

Brush should be left in a neat pile adjacent to the street no sooner than Sept. 28.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com