What About the Leaves?

Debris pickup isn't over yet and town crews are still working nonstop to make roads safe but residents still want to know — what about leaf pickup?

The answer is that most of the town crews who would normally be working on leaf pickup are busy with storm cleanup, town officials said Wednesday. They expect debris pickup will wind down in a week or two, at which point crews will be able to turn their attention to leaves.

“People have to be realistic. We’ve got all our guys taken from every department. We’ve got people doing things they probably never dreamed they’d be doing and for the most part everyone’s stepped up and given up a lot of time and effort,” said Russ Arnold, director of public works.

Town Manager Kathy Eagen opened Wednesday night’s Town Council meeting thanking Arnold, Highway and Grounds Superintendent Scott Zenke and engineer Matt Blume for their work, which stopped only briefly for Thanksgiving.

“They’re still working seven days as week, 15-hour days,” Eagen said. “Most everyone has calmed down with this storm but these guys and their staff are still working all the time to make sure everything’s being cleaned up and managed well.”

The crews have been both working to ensure Town roads are clear and safe and overseeing debris removal by Tennessee contractor Michael’s Tree and Loader Services. While many towns hired an independent monitoring service in order to meet FEMA requirements, Farmington staff elected to take on the job themselves.

It means having a town employee in a tower overseeing the process, controlling, estimating and documenting how much brush is brought in each truckload. Each truckload gets a ticket and there must be five copies of each ticket.

When hanging branches are cut, they must be verified as storm damage. Part of the monitor’s job is to take a picture of each tree before the damaged branch is cut, then after it’s cut and to provide the GPS coordinates of each tree. Arnold estimated FEMA would end up with 12,000 photographs.

The long hours translate into about $75,000 in overtime wages for staff, Arnold said. And the town expects to be reimbursed by FEMA for 75 percent of those costs. In comparison, other towns have paid $250 - 300,000 for monitoring services.

Town staff are almost finished cleaning up Rails to Trails, too, Arnold said. All but about 200 yards of town trails have been cleaned up are safe for use.

Meanwhile, leaf piles can just wait by the road and town staff will do their best to pick them up before the next snowfall.