Out with a lot of limbs

By MARGIE TRAX PAGE - Staff Writer - mtrax@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

March 28, 2008 05:06 am

— GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE — Tall piles of tangled branches line village streets, their jagged ends sticking out over the curbs and sideways.
The branches are victims of the ice storm and subsequent blizzard earlier this month, their strength diminished by March’s one-two weather punch.
Village Mayor Frances Cervas said residents should hold tight to their small branches and fight the urge to go out on a limb to hire a chipping service.
“There are a lot of branches to gather up, and the village crews are working on it,” Cervas said. “But there is a lot to get to, so we are asking residents to be patient.”
Cervas said residents can put their small fallen branches onto the tree lawns, but the branches can’t block roadways or sidewalks.
“We are treating this much like we do the leaf pickup in the fall,” Cervas said. “But residents should know that we can’t take any branches more than 3 inches in diameter.”
Cervas won’t name a date of pickup for the small branches but said crews will work on it as weather and personnel availability permits.
Geneva Township Trustee Tim Mills said township crews will be out within the next two weeks to pick up branches left near the roads.
“But we won’t go into yards to do cleanups or anything. If the branches are near the road, we’ll take them,” he said.
Mills said many township residents already have cleaned up their properties and have burned their branches.
“But we understand burning isn’t an option for everyone, so we’ll come around and get the branches people leave out,” he said.
The branches will be chipped into mulch, Mills said.
In Geneva, crews are already working on the small-branch pickup, a city employee said.
City residents can put branches up to 3 inches in diameter onto the tree lawns for the chipper. Residents may drop off larger branches and tree limbs at the city recycling center on Austin Road, where they will be processed and added to the city’s mulch pile. City residents are welcome to take free mulch for their gardens during the summer months, the employee said.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.