City crews working to remove leaves

Martha Appelin adds leaves to her pile on North Cedar Street. City crews are working to remove the unusually high volume of leaves which fell at one time this year.

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Richie Ann Ashcraft

Martha Appelin adds leaves to her pile on North Cedar Street. City crews are working to remove the unusually high volume of leaves which fell at one time this year.

By Richie Ann Ashcraft
Friday, November 25, 2011

City of Grand Junction leaf removal crews are still running late this week due to a high volume of dropping leaves and some equipment malfunction.

“We’re not completely back on schedule yet,” said Chris Spears, street systems supervisor, who added that one machine is working in the Redlands area and the other three are working within the city limits.

Spears said he expected the program to be back on schedule early next week.

“We appreciate people being patient,” Spears said.

There has been an unusually high volume of leaves in the past few years, Spears said.  City crews have cleaned 10 to 11,000 cubic yards annually. Most likely, this is due to maturing trees in some of the newer subdivisions, he said.

The final round of removal will begin Thursday when crews will make another sweep of the entire city.

The program will end Dec. 16 when the machines will be reset to be used for snow and ice removal.