Sylvania Township: Set with leaf plan

10/19/2005

Sylvania Township has contracted with two private companies to help collect leaves this season.

Brad Peebles, township administrator, said the move is an attempt to get the leaves up this year before winter weather makes it a more difficult and expensive task.

Snow-covered leaves, Mr. Peebles said, are much more difficult to gather and produce excessive wear on township machinery.

He also noted that the more difficult the weather, the more treacherous the work for crews.

"We can really run into liability situations when there's ice and snow,'' he said.

He noted that a limit of $25,000 has been placed on the total cost to the township for the help of the two private businesses.

Greg Huffman, township road services director, said the two companies that will be working along with township crews are Delta Storage of Delta, Ohio, and Dinkmar Inc. of Galion, Ohio.

He said their equipment may not have the capability of handling neighborhoods that are heavily wooded but will be sent to neighborhoods where there may be fewer leaves.

They also may be used on weekends to continue routes at points where township crews have ended their work on Fridays.

Township crews will begin Monday near the Michigan-Ohio border and work south along Flanders Road and streets running east and west from it.

They will take a general route also going south down Whiteford-Corey roads to Central Avenue and then head west to the township limits.

Mr. Huffman said they'll work their way up along the western border and then head east on Alexis.

The same general clockwise swing will continue until leaf collection is complete, he said.

Mr. Huffman added that in addition to snow making it much more difficult to collect the leaves, the same crews have to suspend that operation and begin plowing streets.

That just delays the leaf-collection operation and pushes it further into the potential for bad weather.

Both officials said they hope to have leaf collection finished in early December but acknowledged that when the leaves fall in relation to when storms hit, is always the determining factor on when the process will end.