Salt stored by Allen County may be under cover this winter.
Bill King, director of Public Works, told commissioners Tuesday he was looking into an open-ended building to erect over an asphalt slab at the landfill. He said cost would be $10,000 to $15,000, which would be recovered in a few years in salt not lost to the elements.
Salt is used during winter months to treat icy and snow-covered roads.
“We usually go into winter with about 125 tons,” King said, which is mixed one part salt with three parts small-diameter rock when applied to roads.
Some salt is left from last winter and a new supply will be purchased well ahead of the possibility of winter weather, because “it has been hard to find late in the season the past several years,” King said.
King said he would have more particulars soon on a Quonset-hut type structure for commissioners to review.
They took no action on a proposal from a citizen to erect a sign a mile south of Iola to note old U.S. 169 continues on to Humboldt where the road curves to the east toward Allen County Airport.
“A sign would cost $60 or $70 plus labor,” said King.
“We’ll think about it,” replied Commissioner Dick Works.
King said seven Public Works Department employees completed a “roads scholar” program put together by the Kansas Association of Counties and Kansas Department of Transportation. The seven were tutored in road-grading techniques and other things to do with maintaining roads.
TWO REQUESTS for county financial support were heard.
Tim Cunningham, director of Tri-Valley Developmental Services, asked for $60,000 in its 2013 budget. This year Tri-Valley received $58,730, down from $59,000 in 2011.
He noted during the past year 94 Allen Countians had benefited from Tri-Valley services and that 48 Tri-Valley employees either worked or lived in Allen County. TVDS serves Allen, Neosho, Woodson and Bourbon counties. It has an office at 10 W. Jackson.
Its 2013 budget projects expenditures of $6,628,782, with $202,255 coming from the four counties.
KELLI KRAMER, manager of Allen County Conservation District, proposed county support of $25,000, the same as this year’s. Administrative expenditures are projected at $47,250.
Kramer said county agricultural producers received $470,916.56 in federal subsidies during the past fiscal year for a variety of soil and water conservation measures.
