Leaf Pickup

Published: 10/16/2002

As hard as it is to believe, fall is upon us. Soon the colors of the trees will be in spectacular display. We are blessed with a rich and wonderful landscape in Upstate New York, and it is most amazing when the fall colors are in their peak display.

This is also a time when we are finishing our preparations for the fall leaf collection season. Between now and the end of the year, our Highway Department's primary focus will be on the collection of leaves that you rake to the street. During the leaf season, the Highway Department works nine hours per day, six days a week.

To put this in perspective, almost 17,000 man-hours were devoted to the collection of leaves, including over 1,300 overtime hours. During this period the highway crews picked up 2,659 loads of leaves, which is over 21,000 cubic yards of material.

Traditionally what we see is a steady volume of leaves between now and Thanksgiving. Following that, we tend to get heavier frosts that bring the balance of leaves down. This is the period that we see the heaviest volumes of leaves raked to the street for pickup.

Our collection information further emphasizes this point. In October, we pick up about 12% of the total volume of leaves, 55% in November and 33% in December. This means that within an eight week period we are picking up over 2,300 loads of leaves which equals approximately 19,000 cubic yards of material or 88% of the total leaves collected.

As you are all aware, the weather during this part of the year can also be variable. A prolonged period wet and cold weather tends to cause leaf piles to become matted and frozen and reduces the effectiveness of our leaf vacuums to collect these leaves. If we get into periods of prolonged snowfall, we then must remove the leaf boxes from our trucks and replace them with salting equipment. Naturally this reduces the resources we have available to pickup leaves.

We know that the collection of leaves is an important service and we continually try to improve the way we deliver this service to you. Following last year, we asked a team of highway workers to look at the leaf collection service and charged them with recommending improvements.

As a result of this team's work, we will be experimenting with some equipment, especially leaf vacuums, that our equipment maintenance experts believe will be stronger and more durable. We are renting two machines this year so we can evaluate their effectiveness with an eye toward the replacement of all of our leaf vacuums.

Another area of improvement that has been identified is in the area of communications. We will provide regular updates to our highway office so when you call in to get information about leaf collection we will be able to give you the most up to date information possible. Regular updates will also be provided to the Commissioner of Public Works and my office so that we also will be knowledgeable about the status of this service.

Our goal is to provide collection of leaves once every two weeks. During our heaviest periods it is not always reasonable to meet this goal due to the overall volume but we are committed to picking up leaves as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

There are also some things you can do to help us with this service which include:

• Do not mix branches, sod, rocks, or any other materials in with the leaf piles. This material often will cause damage to the leaf vacuums, which diminishes our ability to pick up leaves.
• When raking leaves please try to have piles within a close proximity to the back edge of the gutter since the hoses for the leaf vacuums only extend 3 feet.
• If you have small quantities of leaves please place them in a bag of container. This helps with the efficiency of the service since the smaller quantities can be picked up as part of the weekly bagged and/or bundled service and the bigger volumes can be handled by the equipment better suited to large piles of loose leaves.

The men and women of the Highway Department know and understand the importance of the leaf collection program. They work very hard in this effort and they want you to know that they are committed to doing everything they can to improve the delivery of this service.

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