Fontanelle much closer to final answer on brush pile

Fontanelle residents will soon have a place to take their brush, and it will likely be in the same location they always took it.

The city council discussed last Tuesday during their monthly meeting, the idea of buying a dump trailer and allowing residents to bring their brush to the city maintenance shop area on West Benton Street to place it in in the trailer. The city will then transport the trailer to a property they own at the lagoon site south of town where they will burn it. City officials stressed that when this arrangement starts, the public is prohibited from visiting the lagoon site.

Last week, the council authorized the city to purchase a dump trailer that would not exceed $11,500 for use for this and other purposes, using local option sales tax money. City leaders are hopeful they can purchase a trailer for less than that amount.

Beginning in early 2022, the city was notified by the Iowa DNR that for multiple reasons, their brush pile could probably no longer be located where it had been.

The pile was deemed to be too close to area homes.

“It was not that it could not be opened back up down there, it was that every inhabitable building within a quarter of a mile of that site had to sign off on accepting that it could be open again, and an affidavit would have to be filed with the county,” City Clerk Mary Dodson said. “It would be a lengthy process, so that’s when we asked why our city employees couldn’t take it to the location we already have, which is the lagoon that is already fenced. We are the only ones who have right-of-way to drive down that driveway to the lagoon.”

As a result, there was a time when brush was collected at the old site and trucked to Bridgewater’s brush pile, where it was burned; however, that became cost prohibitive.

Dodson said city leaders hope the new solution will work much better for all.

“People can put brush in that trailer and we can move it easily enough, but the lagoon is not open to any resident to go and dump there,” Dodson said.

Specific hours that the dump trailer will be available at the maintenance shop site are expected to be set at the council’s July meeting.

“We are so much closer,” Dodson said.