Commissioners complain about trash left at recycling center during off hours, discuss county’s bridges of the past


Ozark County Western District Commissioner Layne Nance took this photo over the weekend, showing where a local resident left about 20 large contractor bags filled with trash at the recycling center gates. Generally, residents must pay $2 per bag to dispose of non-recyclable household trash at the recycling center.

The Ozark County Recycling Center, on County Road 502 east of Gainesville’s business district, is open from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. (The center’s opening time has been changed since the signs were painted.) The center is closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and residents should not leave trash or recyclables at the gate during closed hours, commissioners say. The recycling center accepts bags of household trash from residents who do not have trash service for $2 per bag. The center also accepts recyclable plastics, glass, tin cans, aluminum cans, cardboard, paper (only regular cardboard and paper, no slick paper), all metals and used oil. Magazines and “junk mail” are not accepted. There is no charge for leaving recyclables. See related story, page 1.

At their weekly meeting Monday, the Ozark County Commissioners discussed the recycling center and some past and ongoing road-and-bridge projects. 

 

An extra set of hands

Western District Commissioner Layne Nance said the commissioners are participating in a program through Ozark Action that will allow them to hire an additional employee through the summer. 

“He’s training now,” Nance said, referring to the applicant. “Of course, we had to put him in a position that he hasn’t done before. So he’s training for a grader operator. And then, the way I understand it, he’s met the criteria to do this up to four months.”

Nance said the county pays 50 percent of the employee’s wages, and Ozark Action pays the other half. The summer employee is not eligible for county benefits under the program, Nance said.  

“After this trial period…, I told him it’s not 100 percent guaranteed, but it might possibly work into full-time [work.] If not, at least he got him a little training, and he could go somewhere else and get [a job.]”

Nance said the timing works out well for the county, as he has an employee who is expected to undergo shoulder surgery soon and will be out of work for eight to 12 weeks.

“It’s kind of a good deal for everyone, really,” Nance said. 

 

Recycling center closed on Fridays

The commissioners opened the meeting with a discussion about the recycling center. 

“Me and Layne had a little problem over the weekend,” Eastern District Commis-sioner Gary Collins said after the meeting started.

“Yeah, we did,” Nance agreed. 

“People throwing out about 20 bags of trash at the recycling center gates over the weekend,” Gary continued. 

“Sure did,” Nance said. 

“We need to reiterate that [the recycling center is] closed on Fridays,” Presiding Commissioner John Turner said. 

The commissioners confirmed that the recycling center is open from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, which coincides with the schedule the county’s road-and-bridge crew keeps. The county’s road-and-bridge shed is located next to the recycling center, which is closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 

Nance said last Friday he was at the county’s shed next to the recycling center in a fenced area, and two vehicles pulled up to the recycling center while he was there. 

“[One man] come in with a load of trash,” Nance said. “I told him they were closed, and he said, ‘Well, go on Google. According to Google, it’s open on Fridays.’ I said, ‘Well, they need to get that changed, whoever is in charge of that.’” 

“You can’t change Google,” Turner said.  

“I don’t know, then, because you look it up on the web, and it says it’s open Fridays,” Nance said. 

“We might have to put a little sign up on the fence: not open on Fridays with the hours,” Turner said. “Might have to put up a couple cameras….”

“If I go up there again, I’m going to shut the gate and lock it behind me,” Nance said. “But I drove up there Friday, and there’s 20 bags of trash junk piled up.”

“That means we don’t get paid for those 20 bags,” Turner said. (The recycling center accepts household trash for $2 a bag.) 

“Well, [the people who dumped the bags] knew we weren’t open,” Collins said. 

“Yeah, someone said they’re not here, and I think that’s what happened,” Nance said. “It was a little of both [trash and recyclables], but 90 percent was trash-trash. There might’ve been one bag of plastic jugs, but it was just those big bags. Someone planned it, because they’d had the big leaf bags just stuffed full of little bags.”

“They knew that we wasn’t open. They just didn’t want  to pay the $2 per bag,” Collins said. 

“One ole boy come up there when I was there,” Nance said. “I was trying to get up [to the center] and stop him, and he threw three bags out and hauled butt out the gate before I could get to him. So there was three more bags that didn’t get paid for.” 

“Yeah, it’s getting to be a problem,” Turner said. “We need to put up a camera and put a sign up: ‘Do not leave trash if we’re not open. If you do, we’ll go through your trash, and we’ll have to fine you for littering.’”

“I’d put a big sign up on the main gate saying the hours and even a sign that says premises is under video surveillance,” Ozark County Clerk Brian Wise said. “‘Do not leave trash.’ It’s not hard. It’d probably cost you 20 bucks for a sign.” 

“Maybe not even that much. Rob [Collins from D&D Signs] could make a sign with the hours on it,” Nance said.

“You put it on the gate, and it can swing with the gate. If it’s open, there is no sign. If it’s closed, there will be a sign,” Turner said.

“It’s getting to be a problem. I think a lot of people are getting to know that we’re not open on Fridays and think, ‘Oh, I’ll just go up there, throw it out next to the gate, and I won’t have to pay nothing,” Turner said. 

 

Cold mix delay

In other matters, Turner and Nance said that this week’s forecast has put a kink in the county’s roadwork plans.

“They’ve started to fix some of these potholes, and they’re going to work today, but it’s going to be so cold. The cold mix will not work with this cold weather,” Turner said, referring to the county’s road-and-bridge crews. “So it’s going to slow up the patching of some of these county chip-and-seal roads because you can’t work that cold mix at these temperatures.”

“If it’s not over 75 degrees, can you even do anything with cold mix?” Wise asked. 

“It’s pretty tough,” Nance said. “You know, they were doing it in the 60s last week. We take it and stir it with the backhoe and load it, and then you haul it where you’re going, and by the time you get there, it’s settled again.”

Nance said the mix “loosens up” and is at a more workable condition when temperatures are above 70 degrees. 

“It’ll be tacky then,” Collins agreed. 

“Today I’m trying to get them to Rockbridge, but that’ll be the only one we’ll get to do this week with highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s,” Nance said. “We’re getting a lot of calls, and we’re trying [to do the work], but the weather’s just not allowing it to happen. 

“Next week’s looking good. But, of course, we can’t be everywhere at once,” Nance said. “Hopefully next week we’ll get into our normal pattern of 70s during the day and 50s at night.”

 

Wide, flat creeks

Nance also said that Haskins Ford, where County Road 863 crosses the upper reaches of Bull Shoals Lake in a mile-long bottom area, is now fully crossable. 

“[The lake] come back up just a trickle, but they shut it off again,” Nance said. “I guess they thought it was going to rain in Arkansas. I looked awhile ago, and they’re dumping [the lake] again.”

Turner said he’s seen a wide range of conditions at “the Ford” throughout his lifetime.

“We moved down here in ’65, and we lived down there on D Highway. We crossed Haskins Ford quite regularly, and frankly I don’t remember as a kid the water hardly ever being up over the Haskins Ford. Back then there were trees down all over [the roadside]…big trees down both sides, all the way down to the tracks.”

“Now, that is a gravel bar from the Rosie Herd field all the way to the tracks, even above the tracks,” Turner continued. “The Corps of Engineers, their land down through there, it’s just covered by gravel bars. All the trees are gone. They take terrible care of their property down there. I mean, you know what I’m talking about. You remember what Haskins Ford used to look like down there?”

“Oh, yeah,” Nance agreed.

“If you’ll look at Haskins Ford Bridge where Barren Fork and Little North Fork comes in there, there’s just a mountain of gravel. Well, we talked to Jimmy Wallace and everybody, you know, and they let Jimmy clean it out years ago. It’s not the Corps. The Corps will give us a permit to do just about anything we want to do. It’s the conservation [department] who says no. You might kill a minnow or a salamander,” Nance said. “But if they’d get the gravel out of there and get that flow back where it actually belongs, it’ll last a few years.”

Turner asked Nance if he’d seen the gravel bar he was referring to at what is known locally as Steel Tracks, a low-water crossing off County Road 861 a few miles away from Haskins Ford.

“Yeah… we need that [gravel bar] out of there because it’s going to take our road. But the conservation department says no. It’s wildlife habitat,” Nance replied. 

“From the bridge over, it’s going to take that road, ain’t it?” Turner asked. “It’s going to mess around, and we’re going to have to build another bridge just to get to the bridge at the tracks.” 

“We used to go in there and clean the creeks out,” Collins added. “Now we can’t do that. The creeks used to be narrow and deep. Now they’re wide and shallow. That’s a problem.”

“Because then it jams up the bridge, and the water goes around the end,” Turner added. 

“The 2017 flood, that changed the creek so much. Now you can get an inch of rain in places, and it washes stuff out because 2017… it’s crazy what it done to the flow of the water,” Nance said. 

 

The always-standing Patrick Bridge

“As much dead timber is laying around the edges of the creek now, if we have another one of them floods, it won’t be a bridge left anywhere,” Collins said. 

“Patrick will still be there,” Wise said, laughing. Patrick Bridge, one of the lowest bridges along the North Fork of the White River, remained intact during the historic flood in the spring of 2017 when most other bridges were washed away. 

“Can’t get rid of it,” Nance agreed. 

“My daddy helped build that bridge,” Collins said. 

“Well, he did a great job,” Wise said. 

“The old [man] knew how to do it,” Collins said. 

“Build them low and let stuff flow over it,” Wise said. 

“You got two ways to build a bridge. Build it low enough for stuff to go over it, or build it high enough for stuff to go under it,” Turner said. “And anything in between [doesn’t fare well].”

“And know, if you build it low and you’re canoeing, don’t lie off to the side; lie straight down,” Collins said, referring to the many floaters who tip their boats while trying to duck under the concrete Patrick Bridge while floating the North Fork of the White River. 

“There was a bridge built over there at Benny Taylor’s, and of course we done it. It was one of them that MoDOT inspects, and we had to do it to their specs…. We cut channel iron, and we really thought we’d done it right and was proud of it…. Well, here comes the MoDOT inspector and wouldn’t really ever say anything. Finally Jim said, ‘Well, what do you think of our bridge?’ and he looked at us and said, “. . . Water will run under it, and drunks can drive over it, so that’s all I care about,” Nance said, laughing. “That was our inspection.”

 

Bridge issues

“In times past, down at Haskins Ford, they had a low-water slab. It usually had water on it year round,” Turner said. “The water run over it, and it was about [a few inches] deep, year round. Then they thought they were tired of people driving over that water. So they decided they were going to build a bridge 4, 5, 6 feet taller. So they went  and poured a heck of a bridge through there. Then when the creek got up, that thing just jammed up with trees, and the water blowed out both ends of it. And there that bridge stood, just stood out there in the middle of the water, 50 feet on this side and 60 feet on the other side. They finally just ended up taking it out.”

Nance and Collins said they have similar challenges with bridges that were built in their respective sides of the county.

“I’ve got a bridge like that where they drilled down into the existing slab and poured pillars down with about a foot opening,” Collins said. “Shoot, next time it comes a rain, it fills it full of gravel. And you just couldn’t clean it out.”

“That’s what I got down here at the elk ranch. When I was a kid you could swim under that one or walk under it,” Nance said.

“Oh, yeah. I have walked under that bridge at the elk ranch,” Turner said.

“And it’s the erosion, and like Gary said, not letting people get in there with dozers and keeping the creeks cleaned out,” Nance continued. “…All the gravel you see up here on north 5 come from around that bridge, and it’s filled it back level again. And when I was little, there was a big hole of water there – fish and everything.”

“I’ve fished that several times. I’ve walked under it fishing, actually,” Turner said. “I tell people it’s like 3 or 4 feet [of space] underneath there, and they don’t believe it.”

“The gravel’s right up to it now,” Turner said. “I don’t know what the situation is.”

“Too many government restrictions,” Collins said. 

 

TAC and SCOCOG meetings

Turner told his fellow commissioners that he planned to attend the Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) meeting in West Plains Tuesday morning, followed by the South Central Ozark Council of Governments (SCOCOG) meeting that afternoon. 

Turner said the TAC meeting allows commissioners to say which highway projects are important in their region. 

“We’ve been blessed with the widening of [Highway] 160, the Tecumseh hill, the turn lane at the school,” Turner said. “[former Western District Commissioner] Greg [Donley] was at a TAC meeting one day. He said, ‘You know, Wayman King called me.’ He was on the school board at the time…. He called me, and he said, ‘We’d like to have a left-hand turn lane into the school.’ So, really, that’s happening because Greg just got up during the TAC meeting and said, ‘We’d like this to happen,’ and they said they’d put it on their TAC list. Then it eventually came up, and they said, ‘OK, we’re going to do it.’” 

Turner said he thinks the widening of Highway 160 and the turn lane will be a good improvement for the county. 

Nance said he planned on calling Pace Construction, who was awarded the contract for that project, to ask where they’re going to set up their hot mix plant. “There’s a rumor that they may set it up there at the quarry,” Nance said. “Now, we have to get our hot mix out of either Mountain Home or West Plains.”

Nance said that the last time a Highway 160 project was being completed, the contractor at the time established a hot mix plant at a Gainesville business, and that arrangement benefitted the county in a big way.

“When they were set up here at Hambelton’s before, we could get it right there, and that saves us a lot of time and fuel – a lot of fuel, and lets us do a lot more in a day. . . . We done all of our patching in a month where otherwise it takes all summer,” Nance said. 

“It worked out great for us last time. We went right up there to get the mix,” he said. “I have a FEMA project that’s coming up real quick to finish Haskins Ford. . . . We’ve tried for three years in a row, and the lake backs up. And it calls for – we’re right around 40 loads left we have to put on in. So it would really be a blessing if I could get it closer.”

Nance said if they’re unable to establish the plant in Ozark County, his crews will likely have to make the 40 load trips to Mountain Home, Arkansas, to get the hot-mix material. 

Ozark County Times

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