AMHERST
Composting operation grinds to a halt — kaboom!
Kevin Tremblett was chatting from behind his desk at the Amherst Compost Facility when he heard the muffled “kaboom.”
“Uh oh,” said the facility’s on-site supervisor, bolting upright in his seat. “That’s not good.”
The kaboom was the sound of an engine exploding on a $650,000 piece of equipment critical to the compost facility’s operations.
The Town Board spent part of its meeting last week scrambling to find a way to quickly replace and pay for a new tub grinder — a humongous, wood-grinding machine that eats all tree limbs, shrubs and brush that are dumped at the compost facility and reduces them to a manageable size.
Without that machine, the town has no way to accommodate the daily intake of landscaping debris that it processes and resells to contractors and residents. The compost facility takes in 25,000 tons of yard material a year at its 10z-acre site on Smith Road near the Glen Oak Golf Course.
The town has received permission from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to stockpile overflow debris along the rear of its facility until another tub grinder arrives in another week or so.
Until then, it’s possible the facility might get a little smelly.
The board reviewed four options to replace the tub grinder last week. It accepted the recommendation of Jeffrey Angiel, head of the town’s Environmental Control Division, to immediately rent a tub grinder for $30,000 a month, then put out an emergency bid for a new grinder, with bids for the new machine to be received by July 7.
After a review of the town’s accounts, available state and Federal Emergency Management Agency aid, and the damaged grinder’s salvage value, Angiel told the board he estimates the town will still need to come up with about $192,000 to put toward a new machine.
Acting Town Engineer Tom Ketchum said the town’s grinder is nine years old, and such machines typically only have a life expectancy of 10 years. However, the grinder was used throughout the October 2006 storm, making it the equivalent of a 12-year-old piece of equipment.
Because of its storm duties, FEMA gave the town $19,000 to pay for maintenance of the grinder. Angiel said he was aware the engine needed repair work and was waiting for the funds to be released by the town.
Comptroller Darlene A. Carroll responded that the town was waiting for its 2007 audit to be completed so that the FEMA money could be properly accounted for before it was spent. That audit just wrapped up a couple weeks ago.
“I don’t think anyone knew how critical this repair was,” Carroll said. “Otherwise, obviously we would have rather spent the money than be in the situation we’re in now.”
