BENTON COUNTY — Benton County officials don’t know yet just how popular convenience centers for county residents are going to be, but they’re encouraged enough to go ahead with plans for a second center on the west side of the county.
The centers are meant to replace the old practice of having county-wide cleanups. The cleanups were held once or twice a year and offered county residents an opportunity to dispose of bulky items, like mattresses, old furniture, televisions, computers and other electronic equipment that were too large for regular household trash pickup but which didn’t merit a trip to the landfill on their own.
The first center opened in November, 2009. It is located at the county road department site on Arkansas 102.
Benton County Fire Marshal Will Hanna, who oversees the convenience center, said having it open on a regular schedule was done to help residents and has turned out to be a benefit to the county as well. The center is open from 8 a.m. to noon on the first and third Saturdays each month.
“The thought was this is probably more efficient than the old method, which was the twicea-year-cleanups,” Hanna said. “We had the expectation that it’ll take off slowly, peak and then level off. That hasn’t happened. We haven’t peaked yet. When we started off it did start slowly as we got the information out to the public, but the demand keeps increasing.”
For most Saturdays, Hanna said, about 70 people will show up. Even during the winter months, he said, the center probably had 50 people per day. On its most recent day - June 19 - Hanna said the staff counted more than 140 people coming by to drop off items at the center.
Hanna said the center, which is manned by county employees on a volunteer basis, has helped reduce costs through the recycling of metal items. He said the county has a cost of about $8,700 on a contract to provide large trash bins, but the metal recycling has brought in about $2,400.
The success of the first convenience center prompted county officials to include a second center in plans for a new road department facility on Bethlehem Road outside of Decatur, county administrator Greg Hines said.
Hines said plans for the new road department facility are on hold pending results of soil sampling needed before any major construction can be done on the site. He said the goal is to have the site ready for use by the end ofthe year.
“We’ve got to be sure the rock shelf we think is there under the soil really is there and is suitable for construction,” Hines said. “The site plan is done and we’ve been filling in a ravine on one part of the property. That area would only be used for parking, not construction.” When construction does begin, the county will benefit from a federal grant promoting energy efficiency and conservation activities. Along with work on the historic Benton County Courthouse and the county’s administration building, the utilization of the new road department site helped the county qualify for the $609,300 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant.
Richard Redfearn, the county’s grants administrator, said the road department project qualifies for the program because of projected fuel savings. With the county planning to house more than 40 trucks and other pieces of heavy equipment at the site, those vehicles would no longer be making a 60-mile daily round trip from Bentonville to the west side of the county. Reducing the amount of gasoline and diesel fuel burned in that travel could reduce the county’s carbon dioxide emissions by 640 metric tons a year, according to the grant application.
News, Pages 12 on 07/21/2010