Officials hope to save time, money with new vacuum system
By Ed Nadolski
Editor in chief
The City of Burlington has a new weapon in its annual battle with falling leaves – a retrofitted vacuum collection system that utilizes an existing truck and just might reduce the labor needed to handle the inevitable autumn task.
“I think it will be a tremendous asset to the city,” Mayor Bob Miller said Tuesday.
He touted the new system as a tribute to compromise and ingenuity on the part of the city’s Department of Public Works staff.
Several years ago when the city’s former vacuum truck became cost-prohibitive to repair, DPW officials looked into the expense of replacing it with an entirely new unit.
That cost, according to Miller, was nearly $275,000 – an expense that Miller and the City Council deemed too steep for a piece of equipment that is used only a few months per year.
In the interim, city staff has been using a labor-intensive system for leaf collection that includes front-end loaders and dump trucks.
“We sent (the DPW staff) back to the table and they came up with a second proposal,” Miller said.
That plan included retrofitting a more than decade-old Mack dump truck – that is primarily used for plowing snow – with a new front-end vacuum/chipper and a collection hopper that mounts in the dumper.
And the best part, according to Miller, is a price tag of about $118,000 – much less than half the cost of an entirely new leaf collection truck.
The new system, which was pushed into duty this week, features a large corrugated vacuum tube that is operated by joysticks in the cab of the truck. A single operator is able to use the system with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the joysticks. A split screen video monitor gives the operator two different views of the nozzle.
The leaves are sucked up the tube, shredded by the chipper and then blown into the rear-mounted hopper. When the hopper is full, the operator drives to the city’s compost area and dumps it.
Public works employee Tom Koch said the new system is a “great addition to the city’s fleet.”
Public Works Director Connie Wilson, who observed the vacuum in action Tuesday, said other communities that use similar systems have been pleased with the results.
However, both she and Koch said the city will have to launch a public education campaign to keep certain things out of the curbside leaf piles.
Branches, brush, pumpkins and garden waste such as tomato plants can clog the intake tube if they are too large and slow the process – sometimes forcing the operator out of the cab to clear the chute.
Miller said city officials have visited with their counterparts in Oshkosh, which is using three similar systems on two shifts per day throughout the fall.
He said Oshkosh is able to clear leaves from more than 300 miles of streets on a weekly basis.
Rather than rake leaves into the gutter as residents do here, Oshkosh residents deposit their leaves on the parkway for pickup by the vacuum system, Miller said.
If residents fail to comply with those instructions, the home is bypassed and a notice is hung on the door.
Miller said he believes Burlington will eventually be able to use the new vacuum system on all city streets.
“With some creative scheduling, why can’t we run it 12 hours a day?” he asked, noting that it should be the city’s goal to clear all streets once a week during the fall.
Koch was less optimistic the new vacuum would be suitable for all streets. He said employees would likely identify areas of the city where the vacuum is most efficient and continue to use loaders where the task is more difficult.
Miller said the city would use the remainder of this fall season as a shakedown period for the new vacuum and will then determine the policies and procedures for 2012.
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