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City Bags Leaf Collection Fall Guys Will No Longer Pick Up Refuse Swept Into Cda Streets

By Ken Olsen keno@spokesman.com

A longtime city tradition is leaving.

This fall, for the first time in memory, city residents won’t be able to sweep their leaves into the street for city crews to collect.

The new routine is bag or box the leaves and parcel those containers out with the garbage cans during the month of November.

There are just too many leaves for the city to continue to try composting. And it will cost too much for the city to haul off the leaves instead of Waste Management, the garbage contractor, taking them away.

“We have 5,000 to 6,000 cubic yards - a big mound and a long one,” said Sid Fredrickson, city wastewater supervisor. Plans to try to blend the leaves with sewage sludge didn’t work.

The catch was the need to grind the leaves, collected from street gutters by city crews. There always was something more than leaves hidden in the piles of fall color.

“You can get anything from a dead cat to a crankshaft and that doesn’t grind real well,” Fredrickson said.

The pile of rotting leaves, on a corner of the old Ramsey Road landfill, also causes the occasional smell complaint. In fact, it’s the city’s number one odor problem, Fredrickson said.

The city considered picking up the leaves anyway and hauling them to the transfer station. But Kootenai County, which runs the facility, wanted the leaves ground up and also would have charged a tipping fee. The price tag was estimated at $30,000, said John Austin, city finance director.

Waste Management doesn’t have to pay the tipping fee and, because people will bag or box their leaves, won’t have to have them ground up. It can do the task for about $18,000. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: TURN OVER NEW LEAF New rules for leaf collection are: Bag or box leaves in containers no larger than 33 gallons or heavier than 65 pounds. Put only leaves in the containers. Use containers that will not break when lifted. Put bags and boxes out with garbage cans on your regular garbage pickup day, beginning Nov. 10. Leaves will be picked up for four weeks. People with large amounts of leaves are asked to divide their leaves into four equal amounts. Up to 2,000 pounds of leaves can be disposed of at the transfer station for no charge.

This sidebar appeared with the story: TURN OVER NEW LEAF New rules for leaf collection are: Bag or box leaves in containers no larger than 33 gallons or heavier than 65 pounds. Put only leaves in the containers. Use containers that will not break when lifted. Put bags and boxes out with garbage cans on your regular garbage pickup day, beginning Nov. 10. Leaves will be picked up for four weeks. People with large amounts of leaves are asked to divide their leaves into four equal amounts. Up to 2,000 pounds of leaves can be disposed of at the transfer station for no charge.