ABOVE: The Yard Waste Recycling Site in Fairmont was a topic of discussion at the Fairmont City Council meeting this week. Sentinel file photo.

FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council spent a good amount of time on Monday talking about the city’s Yard Waste Recycling Site as it’s become a contentious topic among some councilors.

The site has recently been filled with excess materials, due in part to the removal of hundreds of tress infected with Emerald Ash Borer. The city recently completed the first controlled burn in several years and is moving around some leftover material and working on a plan to keep the area cleaner moving forward.

In providing some background, Public Works Director Matthew York shared that the tree site is open yearly from April 1 to Nov. 30 for residents and year-round for permitting companies.

However he said the issue the city is facing is that it’s widely unknown who exactly is using the tree area.

“We believe that most material is coming from the city, but we also have non-scientific data that shows that material is coming from outside the city of Fairmont,” York said.

The city has considered upping the permit cost for contractors using the site in order to help pay for added improvements at the site. However, after talking with staff, York said that idea didn’t sit right.

“We continue to boil down to the same question– should the tree area only receive material from city of Fairmont residents?” York asked.

Council Member Britney Kawecki right away said she absolutely thought that only Fairmont residents should use it as the city is paying to take care of the site.

Council Member Randy Lubenow said that while it sounded like an easy answer, the city will run into additional costs trying to police it.

“I’ve been to the tree dump numerous times and seen many people coming from many directions to dump trees,” he said.

Lubenow said from his perspective the greatest hinderance is the large tree stumps.

“The only option really is to burn those. They can’t be chipped… We’ve talked about putting a size limit on there,” Lubenow said.

A motion was made to direct staff to only receive tree material from city of Fairmont residents. The motion passed with Lubenow opposed.

Next, with that decided, York said he believed that the procedure for dumping material at the site needs to be restructured.

Instead of having the site open 24/7 he said it could be open only a few days a weeks. There could also be a designated spot for certain materials to go, which would work best if the site was staffed.

“That would mean hiring part-time employees to ensure that the area is being utilized properly and all materials being put in the right spot,” York said.

He said the city could also work with contractors to see where the material originated from.

“There’s also a solution that Councilwoman Kawecki came up with a couple of weeks ago about utilizing a transfer station at the old public works site. It would still have some of the same issues that we have currently,” York said.

Kawecki said that because the contractors have a key, she thinks the tree waste site could be locked because they and city staff have a key. A surveillance camera could then be used and the size of the logs could be limited, which would eliminate out-of-towners from coming.

“You would have a log where they call or send an email once a week and it would randomly be audited to verify,” Kawecki said. “You could have designated areas to have your leaf debris or your brush dropped off.”

As for staffing the site, Kawecki noted that there’s already often a staff member at the site separating and moving material.

“Saving $16,000 to man it, keeping it locked, reduces the amount of tree waste site illegally. Hauling it out from the public works site… and putting it in the dump trucks a could times as needed would be cheaper,” Kawecki said.

York said it would also take time, manpower and resources to load the dumptrucks and take trips out to the site.

“We really have no idea how much materials we’re going to receive. We just don’t,” York said.

He said if the council wants to move forward with the idea of a transfer station it would take some more tweaking. Kawecki said she didn’t come up with the idea on her own but has heard of other communities in the state that have one.

“None of the solutions we have come up with have worked. I think it’s time we come up with a solution that’s going to work and having the tree waste site open at all hours of the day isn’t working,” she said.

Lubenow said there hasn’t always been problems at the site.

“Our biggest problem is the Emerald Ash Borer so we have a lot of trees, but we hadn’t burned the site for what, a decade? It took a lot of work to clean it up but if we have a company like Shamrock come in and grind up the brush and once a year we burn it all… I think that’s an option, too,” he said.

In closing, York said that the council had time to decide how it wants to proceed but that city staff will need direction.

“I think we need to inform the residents of what we’re trying to do and why we’re doing it and give them a solution,” York said.