By Katie Curley
Staff writer
November 21, 2008 03:58 am AMESBURY — The compost facility off Elm Street was busy yesterday morning as a steady stream of cars entered to drop their leaves into the large piles. Pickup trucks with tarps and trash barrels filled with leaves funneled in. And while some residents wondered why the town plans to close the yard-waste dump by the end of this year and make them take their leaves and branches to Newburyport, others had no idea it would be closed at all. "I hate this," said one man who did not give his name. "It seems like everything in this town is bad news. Nothing gets done right. It's a simple thing to have the compost here." The Amesbury resident said yesterday's trip was his ninth since the beginning of the fall and he had about nine more trips to go. He suggested the town keep the facility and sell the huge piles of composted soil. Since the town announced the closure last week, a growing number of complaints have been registered, both in Amesbury and Newburyport. Josephine Solari said she doesn't know how she'll get rid of her leaves. She either pays someone to take care of her lawn or waits for her daughter to make a trip from North Carolina to help her. "I've been here all my life and I live alone, so I don't have anyone to do errands, and I have to pay someone to do my lawn," she said. "You reach a point where you have to pay for everything and have no money to buy prescription drugs or food. "They usually put the bags in my car, and I can drive them over and someone helps me unload them," Solari said, noting the trip takes 15 minutes round-trip. "Now I don't know how I will do this." Under the proposed joint trash and recycling contract between Amesbury and Newburyport, the Amesbury compost facility will close this fall and residents will have to take their leaves and yard waste to Newburyport's Crow Lane facility. There will also be five curbside pickup weeks each year for leaves; currently there are none. Two reasons are emerging for why town officials say they want to close the leaf dump: They say they can save some money, and they say it's illegal for the dump to operate in a cemetery. The leaf dump has been located along the side of Mount Prospect Cemetery for years. A bumpy one-lane road and a chain-link fence separate it from hundreds of graves. Jane Snow, a member of the town's Cemetery Advisory Committee, said the state doesn't allow leaf dumps in cemeteries. Then there's the nuisance problems — Snow said families have discovered graves run over by big trucks, and some have considered exhuming their loved ones bodies for burial elsewhere. Mayor Thatcher Kezer's Chief of Staff Kendra Amaral said at Tuesday night's council meeting that the town runs a deficit to operate the compost facility. "In 2008 it cost $28,000 in compost fees, and we collected $1,800 in sticker fees," Amaral said. "We will be saving real dollars as well as operational savings by combining the effort." The stickers cost $15 for a year, plus additional fees for contractors and brush. Newburyport Mayor John Moak said he had a discussion with Kezer earlier this week. Amesbury was slated to pay Newburyport $26,000 a year to manage their compost, he said, which was the reason for agreeing to the plan. That money would go toward running the compost facility, Moak said. Moak said yesterday he made the original decision based on cost savings for the city, but upon further investigation has found people are unhappy. "We are definitely reviewing the proposal more intensely now and thinking of alternative solutions; it might be a different location, it might be a different method. We have to look at the whole picture again." Moak noted nothing has to be agreed upon until April but hopes to have something worked out by the end of this year. "We hope to work with Amesbury and come up with a more viable solution than we did the first time." Newburyport resident and leader of a landfill abutter group Ron Klodenski said Amesbury officials have yet to get the message that Newburyport is rethinking the agreement. "I get the feeling Amesbury officials are still banking on sending their yard waste to Newburyport," Klodenski said. "They haven't got the message Moak has put the plan on hold." Klodenski said his hope is that the problem is resolved as soon as possible before time runs out and few options remain. "I'm not being altruistic here worrying about Amesbury's residents," Klodenski said. "I'm worried it will create additional pressure for Newburyport. I hope we can work as hard as we can now to prevent yard waste from coming to Crow Lane." Newburyport has signed the solid waste contract, as part of a joint deal with Amesbury in which G. Mello Disposal Corporation of Georgetown and Integrated Paper Recyclers of Woburn will join forces to pick up recycling and manage solid waste removal for both municipalities. Amesbury's Municipal Council voted on Tuesday night to allow Mayor Thatcher Kezer to enter into a five-year agreement with the option of two additional five-year terms for collection. At that meeting, there was considerable outcry from the public about the proposal to move the compost facility. Ted Kyrios voiced concern over leaves creating a fire hazard if residents choose to not make the trip to Newburyport to dump yard waste. He estimates he brings 210 bags of leaves to the Amesbury compost facility a year; he says it will cost him $380 to bring his leaves to Newburyport.
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.