Williamsburg looks for way to stop dumping

WILLIAMSBURG — To stop people from outside the city limits taking their yard waste to Williamsburg’s compost site, City Manager Aaron Sandersfeld suggested the city council consider putting up a gate and requiring access codes.

Sandersfeld said Marshalltown installed a system in which residents pay for access to the area and receive a code to open the locked gate. Sandersfeld guessed a gate would cost upward of $20,000, and the panel for the codes would be an additional cost.

This spring the city paid $7,700 to have all the trees that had been dumped there shredded, said Sandersfeld. It’ll have to do the same again this fall.

“You’re spending $15,000 a year to dispose of it,” said Sandersfeld. People take the resulting woodchips for landscaping and bedding, he said.

Sandersfeld doesn’t want the city to keep paying to dispose of waste from people who don’t live in the city limits.

“In March, we had the site bare,” Sandersfeld told the City Council The site was full again by the end of October.

“We’re spending a lot of money,” said Sandersfeld, and the city is spending it on people who aren’t residents of the town. “Is that really a good use of tax dollars?” Sandersfeld asked.

City Councilman Tyler Marshall wondered if the city could monitor the dumping. “There’s 100 people there a day,” said Sandersfeld. “It’s nonstop.”

The city has a camera system, but it’s not great for reading license plates, said Sandersfeld.

Marshall pointed out that an access code could be shared with others. That’s why each code be used a limited number of times, said Sandersfeld.

Maybe the city could set a penalty for people outside the city caught dumping there, said Marshall.

“You can’t catch them,” said Sandersfeld.

“We’ve got to get it under control somehow,” said Councilman Dale Walters. The council agreed to have Sandersfeld check into the cost of a gate system.

“It would pay for itself in five years,” said Williamsburg Mayor Adam Grier.