Unfortunately, we will not. FEMA does not reimburse the city for commercial type entities including businesses, churches and apartment complexes.
This is a major disaster recovery operation, which has impacted the entire city, and which will take significant time to complete. We will continue collecting tree debris until one full sweep of the city has been completed. We will do residences first and city property after all residences have been picked up.
The city began picking up limbs on Nov 16. If we have already been through your neighborhood, there will not be another pass. Limbs can be dropped off at the Public Works yard, 5300 N Central Ave., during normal business hours, Monday-Friday, 7 am to 3:30 p.m.
Public Works is accepting limb debris drop off during regular hours. Normal drop off protocols of having a current utility bill applies. Tree limbs are free for drop off. All other bags and types of debris will be charged a fee. Fees are $7 per cubic yard. The yard is open Monday - Friday from 7 am to 3 pm.
Seasonal Polycarts are available for a fee of $7.50 a month per cart with a 3 month minimum.
- Customers may request an additional regular service polycart for a fee of $2.50 per month for the 2nd polycart and $7.50 per month for a 3rd cart.
- Customers may also call and request a bulk pickup which has a $25 minimum fee and additional cost is based on measured size of the items.
Only tree limbs will be picked up at this time. If other items are at the curb with tree limbs, workers will not stop at the residence. Refer to previous questions to learn about options for other items, such as leaves or bulk objects.
Unfortunately, no. Strict guidelines must be adhered to if a community seeks federal government reimbursement for the cost of clean up after a declared emergency . FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) highly regulates debris cleanup of this sort. Bethany is doing its due diligence to comply with FEMA regulations during this cleanup while keeping operations moving forward as efficiently as possible. In addition, safety is a factor. There is a lot of activity in our Public Works yard that is not conducive to public access.
The landfill is using the processed product to stabilize driving surfaces within the landfill. Constant traffic and dirt roads in the landfill makes the wood product an appreciated biodegradable solution to assist in their maintenance operations. The landfill in return offers the city a reduced rate over the normal fee for roll off dumpster service.
The quality of “chip” product generated by the grinder is not comparable to the chipped or shredded mulch available on the retail market. Chip quality is based on the size of screens installed on the chipper as well as the sharpness of the cutting blades. In order to maximize the efficiency of processing the vast amount of tree limbs larger screens are installed on the grinder. The larger screen size results in less maintenance and down time of the grinder but also results in a larger processed product. The processed wood coming out of the grinder can be as much as 6-10” long resembling “wood kindling” more than it does mulch or chips.
Some federal programs require that cities fund projects up front and will reimburse them at a later date. For this situation, FEMA has stated they will only reimburse 75% of our eligible expenditures at some point in the future. It typically takes FEMA a while before cities receive reimbursement. Therefore, we have to use existing city funds for now to start the clean-up and we will receive reimbursement later.
A disaster has been declared by the State of Oklahoma and the Federal Government. Since a disaster has been declared, we will be able to start the application process to receive reimbursement of our city funds.
We are being careful with our expenditures as we don’t want to dip too far into our reserves. Contracting out would be costly and we want to be conservative with our spending.
At the outset of this process, we estimated that it would take months to complete this clean-up project. We understand it is frustrating for everyone. We appreciate everyone’s patience, as our crews do their best to clean up the limb debris and perform their normal duties simultaneously. If you have specific questions about limb debris drop-off, please see the other FAQ’s on this page.