The weather is changing, the surrounding hills and our community are awash in beautiful fall colors and the leaves are falling. It's great to have big shade trees in your yard, but during this time of year, you can start to resent them. You're probably asking yourself, “What should I do with all these leaves?”

I have two easy ideas, because it is important to keep leaves out of the gutters and storm drains. Pocatello's storm drains
do not flow to the wastewater treatment plant, rather they flow directly to the

Portneuf River. Removing leaves from street gutters will help to prevent organic materials from reaching a storm drain. Removing leaves from street gutters also helps to keep storm drain grates clear and flowing, which helps to prevent ice built up later on. We all need to do our part to protect the Portneuf River by keeping debris and chemicals from even reaching the river.

The first idea is to take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaf clutter on your lawn. You want to reduce the leaves to dime-size pieces. You'll know you're done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer. Once the leaf bits settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them. Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job and any kind of leaves can be chopped up. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter. Leaf mulch returns nutrients back to the soil, and your lawn will require less fertilizer and other additives.

If you want to rake leaves instead, the Sanitation Department offers free curbside leaf collection from October 31 - December 2, 2011, (LEAF COLLECTION EXTENDED) let us get rid of the leaves for you. FOR LEAF PICK-UP DETAILS CLICK HERE.

All you need to do is place your bags or boxes of leaves near your garbage cart on your regular garbage day. The bags and boxes must be placed at the curb by 7:00 a.m. to ensure collection and removal. Our crews will collect the leaves the same day as your trash is picked up, but the leaves are usually collected by a separate truck. Be patient if they are not collected right away. There is also a weight limit of 25 pounds per box or bag. Anything heavier may be left behind.

In the near future, I hope we can offer a third option. Bannock County operates a modern composting site at the Fort Hall Mine Landfill. One of our goals will be to assist Bannock County by providing clean leaves for composting. Ideally, we would only collect leaves for composting that are in paper lawn debris bags. All other leaves would have to be disposed of in your garbage cart. We hope to start this option sooner rather than later and then work with the County to market the compost generated from the site.

One option that the City absolutely does not recommend is burning leaves, because leaves typically only smolder which produces a lot of smoke. The smoke can irritate any health conditions your neighbors may have and we want everyone to be good neighbors. However, if you want to burn yard waste of any kind, remember that you must have a burn permit from the Fire Department. There are also several areas of our community still under fire/open burning restrictions so please check with the Fire Department before you burn anything.

The Sanitation Department is here to serve you. Please feel free to stop by our facility located at 1121 South 2nd Avenue, Monday through Friday between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. if you should have any questions, concerns or suggestions. If you are in the neighborhood, please take note of the improvements we've made to our facility. The foundation has been refinished and we have added a wash bay. You may also contact me by telephone at 234-6193 or by e-mail at Randy Allen. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the services we provide and for allowing us to serve you for the past 31 years. Click here for more information on special collection services.

K. Randy Allen
Superintendent
Sanitation Department
City of Pocatello
208-234-6193