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Dec 17, 2012

Street sweeping over leaf pick up?

Fran of Grand Haven asked, "Why couldn't the city of Grand Haven pick up leaves in the fall instead of sending out its street sweeper all summer and even in December? It was still sweeping streets on the first week of December."

ANSWER:

The leaf pick-up program was dropped by the city beginning this year. Blame budget cuts as the reason.

But city residents still have a couple of options. Allied Waste picked up the brown paper kraft bags through Dec. 1, and there are drop-off sites every Saturday at Lakeshore Middle and Griffin Elementary schools, City Manager Pat McGinnis said.

Yard waste pick-up service starts again April 1.

As to the other part of Fran's question, McGinnis defended street sweeping as an important program for the city.

"We remove road grime and dispose of it in a landfill to keep the crud from going into our storm drain system — and, by extension, into the Grand River, Lake Michigan and our drinking water," McGinnis explained. "The town is tidy and we consider this one more environmentally correct effort that is worth the effort."

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Comments

common cents
Mon, 12/17/2012 - 6:48pm

So driving that giant truck around is better for the environment? Right...

Walking Alive
Mon, 12/17/2012 - 8:27pm

Where do they dump it? On the ground next to the river where the city wants to build a campground?

common cents
Tue, 12/18/2012 - 11:36am

Never heard of "road grime" being so dangerous! Makes me wonder what it has in it? Glad we can make it during the winter months w/o it being an issue!

ghresident
Wed, 12/19/2012 - 10:00am

Blame budget cuts as the reason.?????? The City used the monies from this for the new bathrooms at the city beach and other projects for the tourists. The sad part is they still have to run the sweeper during the fall as it’s not the resident’s responsibility to remove leaves that naturally fall/blow into the streets. Anyone notice how much more the sweeper is run during Coast Guard and the 4th of July? Priorities are keeping things nice for the tourists vs. the taxpayers.

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