Supervisors, county faced with hefty debris cleanup costs
Published 4:37 pm Friday, December 20, 2019
- Team Rubicon members Jon Bunn, left, and Michael Martel watch as Tim Anders uses an excavator to demolish a home on Yazoo Lane. (Courtland Wells/ The Vicksburg Post)
The final meeting of the Warren County Board of Supervisors was scheduled to be last Monday, but an item — that came with a bit of sticker shock — will require the current supervisors to come together at least one more time.
During Monday’s meeting, John Elfer, director of the Warren County Emergency Management Agency, provided the final report from Team Rubicon, who worked to demolish 24 homes in the Eagle Lake area that had been severely damaged by this year’s historic Yazoo Backwater Area flood.
The agreement with Team Rubicon was the organization would demolish the homes for free and move the debris to the right of way for county crews to handle removing.
During their meeting earlier in the month, supervisors had discussed plans to stage 30-yard dumpsters in the Eagle Lake area that would allow county crews to pick up the debris from the right of way and then place in the dumpsters. This would allow crews to collect more debris, quicker, without having to make multiple trips to the landfill during the day.
“In all, they report 246,896 cubic feet of debris,” Elfer said. “That would be an estimate of 305 30-yard dumpsters.”
During the initial flood cleanup, Warren County was part of an emergency declaration that gave the county an opportunity to get reimbursed by state and federal agencies for cleanup work. That declaration expired in October.
Any money spent now on the cleanup would be the county’s whole responsibility.
Tonga Vinson, the county’s purchasing agent, said historical costs for dumpster fees had at one time been $600 per dumpster.
“Based on the costs of what we used while we were under the emergency declaration, it is going to cost about $180,000 for the dumpsters,” Vinson told supervisors.
In the meeting in early December, supervisors gave Vinson permission to seek bids for the dumpster work, which will be opened Monday at 10 a.m.
Given the need to approve the measure, or look for alternatives, the supervisors recessed their meeting, agreeing to go back in session Monday at 11 a.m.