The one year anniversary of Hurricane Irene’s impact on West Windsor passed as August came to an end, but residents have had reason to worry that the township will be slow in dealing with the aftermath of severe weather. Summer thunderstorms and wind have already caused enough damage for the town to handle. At the Council meeting on Monday, August 20, Mayor Hsueh said Public Works was nearly a month behind schedule in picking up debris that fell following mid-summer rain storms.
The West Windsor Shade Tree Commission has spearheaded an effort to make residents aware of potential situations following storms that cause damage — especially the conditions of trees that were affected. At its meeting on Wednesday, August 22, Township Landscape Architect Dan Dobromilsky summarized the effects of summer storms.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with the trees. It had to do with the downdraft winds — I heard on the news that downdraft winds can carry the same force as cyclonic, tornadic winds heading from one direction down. That could have been the case based on two things – the damage being so sporadic and what trees it affected,” Dobromilsky said.
Ron Slinn, vice chair of the shade tree commission, spoke with Director of Public Works Alex Drummond. He told Slinn that from July 28 through August 21 the township collected 95 compacted trucks of brush. Each truck holds 25 yards of compacted materials. During the same period in 2011 the Department of Public Works picked up 40 trucks.
The dump trucks take brush to Britton Industries, which just received a new contract from West Windsor Township at the Monday, August 20 Council meeting, after unanimous approval of a two-year, $79,800 contract for “disposition of vegetative waste for recycling.”
Slinn told the Shade Tree Commission about Council’s recent discussion of Public Works’ procedures for storm clean-up, and specifically why debris in the township is cleared according to zones instead of working from main roads such as Clarksville and Penn Lyle and then going further inward to clear each neighborhood.
On August 20 Councilman Bryan Maher raised the point and expressed his displeasure with a seemingly inefficient method in place. Mayor Hsueh explained the current procedures and agreed with Maher’s assessment.
For all public parks and street trees, Dobromilsky told the Commission that safety concerns were the immediate priority for Public Works.
“Anything that blew over, or is hanging and broken. From there we’d start to repair the damage from those situations. About half a dozen sidewalks were torn up because of trees that fell. Some stumps were being removed, and stone was being put over the concrete because we do not have masons on staff,” he said.
On August 21 Drummond told Slinn that Public Works was two to three weeks behind on the regular cleanup schedule by zone. He said the worst damage was south and east of Clarksville Road. The late July storms apparently impacted most southeastern parts of the township, including in LeParc I and areas near Grover Middle School. One of the barns at the Grover farm was taken down with a strong wind blowing inside it and causing the structure to collapse.
On Friday, August 24 and Tuesday, August 28, updates on Public Works’ progress was posted on the township’s website. As of August 28 Public Works completed its pickup of Zone 1 and started working to collect debris from Zone 2. In an interview on Tuesday, August 28, Drummond said that Public Works was running one week behind on its scheduled brush collection.
“We have one crew that is focusing on main roads, in particular bike lanes and areas near the schools. The rest of our crews are just trying to do the regular schedule but we are picking up more than twice the normal volume as far as vegetative waste goes. We’re really hauling a lot of stuff out of West Windsor right now.
Public Works has a total of 12 township employees working in three different crews (four people in each) to collect brush.
“We’re not doing this on overtime, just during regular daytime hours,” Drummond said.
For Public Works’ pickup procedures, West Windsor is broken up into four zones. Drummond says that for brush clean-up, his department handles one zone a week under normal circumstances. The rain in late July changed that.
“With the heavy volume out there it has been taking us longer to get each zone done. But once we get most of the damage from the storm clean-up completed, we expect it to lighten up a little bit so we expect to get back on schedule.
Drummond said heavy rains on Monday, August 27, which canceled the much-anticipated Little League matchup at RJ Ward Field, did not impact Public Works’ efforts. He expects everything to be back on schedule in two to three weeks.
Dobromilsky told the shade tree commission that the next step for the township is evaluating whether or not any more damaged trees should be taken down for safety reasons. With major storm events, three steps are in play for West Windsor: removing potential hazards, making a list of things needed to be done such as corrective measures, and have Public Works finish their removals and pruning with outside contractors then handling more removals, replacements, and stump grinding.
Dobromilsky said there are five categories of trees: uprooted trees; stumps (trees already taken out); trees that are failing in some way, which should be removed; pruning (for trees that were damaged but can be salvaged), and young trees which were destroyed. West Windsor’s Public Works has the ability to do some pruning, but not to a great extent. “They have a scissor lift which goes up to 35 feet high. We don’t have a truck or a cherry-picker,” Dobromilsky
said.
Shade tree commission member Paul Pitluk asked Dobromilsky about the use of root barriers which prevent the tree’s roots from spreading far out and making it more susceptible to wind damage.
“The idea is that root barriers pushes the roots down under the sidewalk and they come down under the lawn in front,” Dobromilsky said.
“Root barriers still make sense, and the best option is to try to install it when planting a tree or when a tree is younger,” he said.
Dobromilsky also offered a strong warning to residents: do not touch any fallen or displaced electrical wires after storm damage occurs. “Electricity can travel through a tree or branch. There are documented cases of branches falling on top of wires and a guy getting electrocuted because he touched a branch,” he said.
Those who clear damage around wires or make electrical repairs must also take precautions.
“If anyone ever asks a resident to do any work within ten feet of a downed wire, they need to be certified to do it. If you see somebody going near wires in a neighborhood, tell them to get out of there. Those wires are bare – you touch them you’re dead,” Dobromilsky said.
What West Windsor does with the debris collected by Public Works has also come under scrutiny. At the August 20 Council meeting, Maher questioned a contract the township was awarding to Britton Industries. To him it appeared that a service that was once free was one West Windsor has started paying almost $40,000 per year for.
“It’s my understanding that we’re giving them trees and branches which ends up being turned into mulch, processed and then sold. We’re basically giving Britton Industries or whoever gets this contract a substantial portion of their cost of goods sold. I was told that previously we paid nothing – we gave it to them and they took it.”
“Based upon what is going on with the economy and their business, all of a sudden we are paying $39,900 per year to give them their cost of goods sold. This is peculiar and it is not a significant amount of money,” Maher said.
Business Administrator Marlena Schmid confirmed that Britton was the only bidder for the contract that followed through, as a second bidder picked up materials but did not bid. “There aren’t many vendors provide this type of service,” she said.
“It is a little questionable to get just one bid from the guy we were giving this to before, and to go from zero to $40,000,” Maher said.
Schmid says by law the town had to advertise in one of the town’s legal newspapers because the amount of the contract was over $17,500.
“In terms of the marketplace itself, I don’t know how far those newspapers are circulated,” she answered.
