Point Reyes Light - October 7, 2004
Bolinas has own WPA project
By Jacob Resneck
A director of Bolinas-Stinson Resource Recovery Project has been able to avoid a costly problem by giving several homeless people in town a temporary job.
The resource recovery project, which for a fee, accepts green waste from tree brances to lawn clippings, grinds and composts it, selling the mulch for gardening.
Last month, county inspectors said a large pile of rotting eucalyptus trunks that had been cut up into rounds would have to go. Faced with the prospect of paying the county $2,000 to dispose of the rounds, Director Mike Aitken was able to reach a compromise that saved the Resource Recovery Project $1,500.
The pile of 16 eucalyptus rounds, some measuring five feet in diameter, had been cut from two large trees that fell in a heavy storm four years ago.
By now the stumps are attracting termites, and county inspectors wanted the stumps moved before they attracted more termites. They also objected to the pile because the rounds impeded drainage, Aitken said. However, the estimated $2,000 hauling cost was daunting.
"We’re running on a real tight budget," Aitken told The Light. "I’m just a volunteer here. Those eucalyptus rounds would’ve have been nice low-income housing for termites, but that’s not something that would really turn me on."
Under an agreement hashed out with the Marin County fire marshal, Aitken assembled a work crew of four homeless people living on Bolinas’ Wharf Road and set to work hauling the rounds, one piece at a time, to the Beebe Ranch in Olema where they were ground up and disposed of.
The ranch is within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. It is used each summer in advance of the fire season as a free dropoff site for West Marin residents cutting back brush and limbs for fire protection. Firefighters supervise the seasonal dropoffs.
Aitken said he was pleased that he was able to get the eucalyptus moved without breaking the budget. The whole operation cost about $500, a quarter of the estimated cost, he said.
"Marin County Fire did us a great favor in letting us move them to Beebe Ranch," Aitken said. "I was really pleased with the way it turned out."