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Leaf collection underway
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners have approved an agreement with a Boardman leaf-composting company to recycle leaves at no cost to the county.
Under the agreement, local road departments will deliver the leaves they collect between now and late November to Custom Blended Soils Inc. on South Avenue, which will sell the mulch it derives from the leaf-composting process.
The city of Canfield and the villages of Poland and Lowellville will vacuum leaves from curbside piles, while other communities will collect them in biodegradable paper bags at curbside, said Lou Vega, county recycling director.
Campbell residents must take their leaves in biodegradable bags to a collection center at 125 Roosevelt Drive behind city hall.
Details of the leaf-collection program in each community are posted on the recycling division’s website, www.greenteam.cc.
The commissioners also approved a joint purchasing agreement Thursday with Trumbull County, under which each county will pay $24,684 annually between 2016 and 2020 for purchase of a road-milling machine being shared by the two counties.
The machine mills off old asphalt before new asphalt is applied.
After the commissioners meeting, Patrick Ginnetti, county engineer, said Hopkins, Truesdale and Shields roads and Sheban Drive in Boardman will be repaved next year using an Ohio Public Works Commission grant.
“They have a very high traffic count, and they’re in deplorable condition,” he said.
Each road carries more than 5,000 vehicles daily, he added.
The higher the traffic count, the greater the likelihood of obtaining a state grant to repave a road, Ginnetti noted.
The commissioners also approved a $19,390 agreement with Canfield Fence Co. to replace broken or rotted wooden fences at five sanitary-engineering pumping stations with maintenance-free vinyl fences.