Mayor: State agrees to $50,000 grant for a woodchipper

The state Dept. of Ecology may be about to provide the community with a woodchipper to help with community cleanup of wood debris during annual cleanup times — if it comes in time.

Electric City Mayor Diane Kohout told the Regional Board of Mayors Feb. 1 that Ecology has said the board can apply for, and receive, $50,000 in funding for a chipper that handles annual yard cleanup wood waste the community has traditionally taken to the Delano Landfill, and more recently, the transfer station.

But transferring that wood waste to the landfill in Ephrata was not OK with Grant County Solid Waste, which has forbidden the practice as an illegal free use of the public asset.

At one time, the community simply piled up its branches and bushes into a sometimes-huge heap at the landfill, then burned it in the fall. That kind of burning is now illegal statewide, except in agriculture.

The wood chipping practice is a replacement for that.

The new equipment is unlikely to make it here by the time the local Spring Cleanup takes place in April, but Kohout said she’d asked Grant County to again provide some money to help offset the cost of a chipper rental, fuel and tipping fees as was provided last year. That ask was for $9,600 last year, she said, of which RBOM would have to fund 25%.

One catch is that the entire process of applying for the Ecology grant for the chipper, and receiving the machine itself, must be completed by June 30, Kohout said. It it’s not, the deal is off and the money vanishes as far as its availability under the DOE program. And she’ll have to apply for it through an online process that was not yet set up, she said.

Elmer City Mayor Jesse Tillman said that timeline is very tight if the equipment purchase goes like most do.

Mayors Bob Poch, of Coulee Dam, and Jesse Tilman, of Elmer City, both thanked Kohout for her efforts.