Council, public works board looks at utilities in joint meeting

Members of the Kimball City Council, Mayor Keith Prunty and members of the Kimball Board of Public Works joined together last Thursday to discuss utilities.

Each utility department supervisor presented a list of needs and accomplishments, but one utility supervisor, Jim Schulte, focused also on the growth and positive changes his crew has made at the Kimball County Landfill.

Schulte represented the City of Kimball’s sanitation department as well as the Kimball County Landfill and highlighted many accomplishments made at the local landfill since his return in the spring of 2013 with a power point presentation.

Schulte’s presented photos of the concerns he came back to, including discarded mail with personal information in the construction and demolition pile at the local landfill.

While this poses a security hazard for the owners of the trash, it also comes at a cost to tax payers in the form of wasted man hours.

Schulte reported that the most concerning problems at the landfill were Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) violations, for which measures were immediately taken to correct.

According to NDEQ regulations, household waste must be covered by a minimum of six inches of cover dirt and no waste can come within a certain distance of liner’s edge.

“This is kind of the clutter we had to clean up, and then we started trying to get ahead of things,” Schulte said.

Schulte’s team, including John Faden, Jim Lockwood and David Judd, implemented safety measures including lock out/tag out measures, safety rails and signage and began maintaining, cleaning and painting equipment.

“All my guys have different talents,” Schulte said. “This is what makes things happen out there. I hire someone for their talents.”

The sanitation truck, heavy equipment, conveyor belts and overhead doors are all in need of repair or replacement, Schulte said.

“Aging equipment plus lack of maintenance equals catastrophic failure,” Schulte began. “That is basically what I walked into when I came back.”

The present sanitation truck, a 2003 model, is beginning to show signs of age, according to Schulte. Since the truck was purchased as a prototype, replacement parts are difficult to find.

In the past year the truck has cost the City of Kimball more than $20,000 and major repairs are still needed, Schulte reported.

Additionally, Schulte suggests purchasing a smaller unit that is more easily maneuvered down the alleys of Kimball.

At an estimated cost of $200,000, a new unit would mean less down time for the sanitation department as well as increased production and easier maneuverability.

Additionally, the conveyor belt that was built specifically for the Kimball facility is showing signs of age as well, according to Schulte, and will need to be replaced.

“We got to looking at it and after it busted last time, you can’t repair it. It is getting really worn,” Schulte said. “We are always busy doing something, and there is always a breakdown somewhere. We are prepping for the top liner. Hopefully we’ll save a bunch of money by not having to have contractors come in to do that.”

In addition to managing the landfill and all of the necessary equipment and repairs, Schulte’s crew is responsible for collecting the contents of each dumpster in town.

This includes the household waste containers, which are brown as well as the green yard waste containers.

Household waste must be bagged and contained. Tree waste is a separate item, and can not included in the yard waste receptacles. The green dumpsters are for lawn clippings, weeds, leaves and small twigs.

“Most of you know that the dumpsters are going faster than we can fix them,” Schulte said. “It takes eight to 10 man-hours and about $210 per dumpster.”

The crews can weld or bolt new bottom plates onto dumpsters that have rusted through in many cases, but there are some containers that are not salvageable.

“After I left they started failing and they tried to fix them but they fell behind,” Schulte said of the brown containers. “And the grass is so corrosive that it takes the green ones out within years.”

Additionally, Schulte said they are devising new ways to keep the lids from blowing open in the high winds. The crews are experimenting with adding chains to the lids for added weight, and the prototype seems to be working well.

“We only did that with one so far,” Schulte said. “And the guy seems pretty satisfied with it.”

It will cost approximately $145,000 to replace the dumpsters in the next few years, according to Schulte, with 108 green containers needed presently as well as 76 large brown and 67 small brown containers.

Metal received at the Kimball landfill is recycled, Schulte said, including the refrigerators, which the landfill accepts at no charge.

According to Schulte, the landfill is not charged to drain and dispose of the refrigerant and they are able to pass that savings on to patrons, as a benefit to residents.

Usable compost from the landfill could be a benefit to the citizens as well, Schulte said, if the compost coming into the landfill was clean.

However, due to the misuse of the green containers, the compost pile at the landfill is not usable, Schulte said. He said the city will have to purchase and use a Trommel screen before making it available for residents.

“We recently did an audit here a couple of weeks ago. We went up and down and counted the dumpsters and what was in the green ones,” Schulte said. “On the north side there was 80 percent of the (green) dumpsters had trash and brush in them. Out west it was the same amount and we came this way (east into town) and was running from 30 to 75 percent up and down the alleys.”