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Brush Collection Operations To Be Completed By Week's End
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Tuesday,
December 27, 2011
The brush that has piled up along roadsides throughout Belchertown since the October 29 nor’easter will be cleared by the end of the week, Department of Public Works (DPW) Highway Department Supervisor Walter Bosworth told Belchertown-News.com on Tuesday. But the clean-up's costs may be higher than necessary as homeowners took advantage of DPW brush-clearing operations.
During the week following the October 29 nor’easter, most of Belchertown remained without power. In addition to a minimal presence of National Grid line crews in town, significant infrastructure damage caused by fallen trees was the primary reason for the lengthy power outage.
A large map of Belchertown takes up much of the wall behind Bosworth’s desk at the DPW Highway Department Garage on Jackson Street. Bosworth has been keeping track of the clean-up effort by marking in green all of the roads with brush that still need to be collected. There are only a few roads marked green left on the map and most of them are in the southern end of town.
“That’s all we’ve been doing for 2 months,” said Bosworth of the brush clean-up.
Bosworth said that the weather was critical to getting the brush clean-up completed so quickly.
“If we had snow, that would have killed us,” said Bosworth. “We were lucky.”
As snow would have hindered the clean-up effort, Bosworth said that brush piles on the side of the road would have hindered snow plowing operations.
However, some Belchertown residents did hinder the clean-up effort with their own fall clean-up efforts, according to Bosworth.
Although the DPW was tasked with cleaning debris that presented a public hazard, Bosworth said that many homeowners stacked brush for collection regardless of whether or not it posed a safety hazard—a prerequisite for debris collection that Bosworth said wasn't made clear by town officials, but that is stated on the DPW website. Bosworth said that many homeowners stacked brush from their backyards, which shouldn’t have been put out for collection.
“Stuff in your backyard does not constitute a public hazard,” he said. “If the people didn’t drag all the brush out of their backyard, which they were not supposed to do…We would have probably been done by now.”
“I have never seen the lots in this town so clean,” Bosworth added. “I had one gentleman that increased his backyard size by about three times.”
Because the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimburses municipalities 75% of the costs associated with clearing only debris that poses a public safety hazard, Bosworth said the town likely incurred unnecessary costs as a result of residents cleaning their yards of ordinary debris.
In order for the commonwealth‘s cities and towns to qualify for reimbursements from FEMA, however, the president needs to declare Massachusetts a federal disaster. So far, there has not been such a declaration.
Also adding to the cost of the clean-up was the fact that a contractor needed to be hired to pick up piles that were not stacked neatly as required or that were too big for the town’s equipment, said Bosworth.
“That, we had the log trucks pick up…Then it had to go to the transfer station to be chipped up afterwards,” said Bosworth.
Bosworth said that workers from the DPW Maintenance Department and Wastewater Treatment Plant were enlisted to help with the clean-up. He estimated that the brush collected from the storm will amount to about 50,000 yards of wood chips.
Masslive.com recently reported that Belchertown’s clean-up costs are about $500,000, according to Town Administrator Gary Brougham.
Bosworth said that the collection of debris along Route 202 and Route 9 are the responsibility of the commonwealth as they are state highways.
The collection of “hangers” will take a couple of more months, said Bosworth. The town is contracted with Asplundh to clear hanging limbs that were left dangling precariously from above Belchertown’s roads when they collapsed from the weight of snow and ice during the October storm.
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