Upcoming Changes For Southampton Town Leaf Program

Southampton Town’s leaf program is undergoing two significant changes this year: residents will be encouraged to use vouchers to deposit leaves at specific sites for disposal, and those who still wish to have their leaves picked up curbside will have to use paper bags to collect the leaves.

The changes come as part of an effort to bring the town’s program more in line with what other Suffolk County towns are doing—none of them still pick up loose leaves at curbside, according to Southampton Town Highway Superintendent Alex Gregor. It also comes as an attempt to minimize the transportation and safety hazards presented by large roadside piles of loose leaves, many of which are dumped illegally, the superintendent explained. It is also an attempt to allow his department to spend more time on its long list of other duties, which include snow removal and drain repair, for example.

“The fall is where the problem is, and that’s where we’re making the adjustment,” Mr. Gregor said last Wednesday, June 22, at the second annual “Leaf Forum,” which was held at the Hampton Bays Middle School, before an audience of nearly 20 town residents—about a fifth of the turnout Mr. Gregor said he expected, since the debate over the future of the program has at times been contentious.

In order to use the voucher system, residents will have to call the Highway Department and will then be issued a voucher to deposit their leaves, either loose or in bags, at one of a handful of sites townwide, free of charge. The voucher will list the person’s name, address and telephone number. Residents can either dump the leaves themselves or find a landscaper or other helper to do it for them.

Although Mr. Gregor said he is pushing the voucher program, residents can also bag their leaves for pickup—but paper bags will be required. The paper bags, which he said cost about 45 cents apiece, are sold at the Highway Department, as well as stores like Home Depot and most hardware stores.

“I’m not ending the program. I believe I’m giving people a lot of options, and no one else is stepping up to the plate,” Mr. Gregor said this week, adding that the Town Board has been loath to discuss the program.

This fall’s pickup will be for bagged leaves only, no brush, with one pass per street. The spring pickup will be for leaves and brush. Brush piles should measure no more than 5 feet long, 4 feet high and 5 feet wide, he said.

Seniors older than 73 years old will be eligible for special assistance, and anyone else with special needs might also be eligible.

At the forum, Mr. Gregor noted how the town’s proximity to the ocean means that the leaves don’t fall until relatively late in the season. That, combined with this winter’s series of snowstorms and snowier winters expected in the future—as well as a townwide hiring freeze that has limited the number of workers for the job, and “rampant” illegal dumping—are all compounding problems.

One possible change the department considered involved privatizing the program—but that was deemed too pricey.

Mr. Gregor said he favors having the Town Board pass a resolution for a ballot referendum that would allow voters to decide whether the town could purchase $750,000 worth of equipment—including compactors and buckets for leaf collection—and hire 23 new part-time employees to maintain the curbside collection of loose leaves. The number of workers in the department has been scaled back greatly over the years, he said, from about 13 to 14 employees per district, to seven or eight. There are six districts.

The department is responsible for 450 miles of road. Last year, it picked up about 49,000 yards of leaves and brush, Mr. Gregor said.

The superintendent said he is still searching for a way to turn leaves into dollars and is considering a pilot program in which leaves would be ground up into a pellet fuel which could be sold to generate revenue. He decried how town officials stopped a few years ago allowing an amnesty for commercial haulers to bring leaves and brush to the town transfer stations.

Several forum attendees said they were pleased to learn the program is not going to end altogether.

“I’ve always paid a landscaper to take my leaves away,” said Ed Moore of Hampton Bays, following the forum. “And since the town imposed a dumping fee on the landscaping trucks, he says, ‘I have to charge you $75 extra.’ So I, in turn, said, ‘Forget it. Put the leaves in the street.’ This is why the leaves have doubled over the last two or three years. More people like myself are putting our leaves in the street and are not carting them away like we always used to do.”