OCEAN CITY — In what can best be characterized as a slam dunk, resort officials this week agreed to purchase a second state-of-the-art trash collection truck to remove the mountains of trash collected each night in the summer from the beach.
Last year, the Mayor and Council approved the purchase of a single new state-of-the-art beach trash collection truck called at the time a “game changer” for the operation. The new truck single-handily picked up and emptied the roughly 800 iconic blue trash barrels on the beach from the Inlet to the Delaware line and deposited it at the town’s solid waste facility at 65th Street.
A year later, Public Works Director Hal Adkins last week requested approval for the purchase of a second trash collector truck to supplement the operation of the truck purchased last year. The intent is to phase out the use of two Broyhill beach trash trucks that have outlived their useful purpose. The Broyhill trucks were kept in operation last year as a backup plan if the new trash collection truck broke down or did not operate as expected.
However, after a wildly successful first year for the new trash collection truck last season, Adkins was seeking the purchase of a second truck. The idea is the second truck can be rotated on a weekly or even daily basis with the first truck purchased last year, thereby saving on wear and tear and ostensibly increasing the life span of both vehicles. The two Broyhill trucks will be offered for sale on the govdeals.com website although their value in the current condition would be minimal.
On Monday, Adkins asked how much of the proposal presented last week needed to be reiterated for the council and got his answer in short order. Before Adkins could outline the proposal, Councilman John Gehrig made a motion to approve the purchase.
“Considering the beach is our number one asset, I’ll make a motion to approve funding for the second beach trash collection truck,” he said.
The second beach trash collection truck comes in with a price tag just under $300,000, or roughly the same price paid for the first truck last year. While just one of the new trucks is needed to empty the 800-plus blue barrels each night, the purchase of a second one would eliminate the need for the remaining two Broyhill trucks, on which the town would need to invest around $60,000 on each to make them serviceable for the 2018 summer season as they are nearing the end of their useful life. In addition, rotating the two new beach trash collection trucks would save on wear-and-tear and extend their useful lives for as many as 20 years, according to Adkins.
The existing Broyhill vehicles collected the trash from the army of blue barrels on the beach and deposited the contents at dumpsters placed strategically around the resort, some of which are located in otherwise quiet residential neighborhoods. However, the new beach trash collection truck deposits the trash collected directly at the solid waste facility on 65th Street, thereby eliminating the need for the other dumpsters around town and reducing noise and other pollution associated with the operation.
In addition, expanding the beach trash collection operation with the new vehicle purchase could allow the town to deploy more of the larger 300-gallon trash receptacles and reduce the number of blue barrels on the beach. When asked about the timetable for the new trash collection truck, Procurement Manager Catrice Parsons explained the new vehicle should be in service by next spring.
“If we get the purchase order in by tomorrow, it will take three months to get the chassis, another 30 days for the body and 30 days to do the upgrade,” she said. “We should have it in place by April or May at the latest.”
The council voted 6-0 with Council President Lloyd Martin absent to approve the purchase of the second trash collection truck.
