SMASH 'EM UP

CLEAN UP NETS MORE THAN 1,000 JUNK CARS

BY RINDI WHITE - Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - Once again, the Mat-Su Borough's Clean Up 2001 has surpassed the expectations initially hoped for by borough staff.

"We were hoping for a thousand [junk cars]," said borough code compliance officer Jane Dale on Thursday. "And we're just over that."

According to the office's preliminary report, 1,013 junk cars were dropped off or towed in by the Alaska Army National Guard to the seven cleanup stations located around the borough.

That total does not include the number of vehicles dropped off by Grizzly Towing & Wrecking, as those numbers were not available at press time.

The number of vehicles brought in this year nearly doubled the more than 500 vehicles brought in through the event last year. But that's partially because the event was expanded from last year.

"It was much larger," Dale said. "In a large part, it was due to the interest by local community councils."

The vehicles, at the end of last week, were in the process of being crushed into cubes, and will be shipped off for recycling Outside, Dale said.

Along with the junk vehicles came refrigerators and similar items and tons of scrap metal. In all, nearly 400 refrigerators or similar items were collected and an estimated 265 tons of scrap metal was brought in.

The cleanup effort received assistance from a broad range of volunteers, businesses and agencies throughout the weekend. Nearly 80 people were on hand to help coordinate the three-day event and man the various cleanup stations, and more than 40 different businesses or agencies lent a hand.

"Things went really well," Dale said. "The volunteers showed up and things ran rather smoothly at all of the sites."

Three towing companies - Knik Towing and Wrecking, Grizzly Towing and Wrecking and Night and Day Recovery - collected and crushed scrap metal, vehicles and appliances without pay, Dale said.

The companies will recycle the metal, but they worked the weekend without a contract with the borough for reimbursement. To help make their job easier, the borough provided garbage receptacles for each site, in which tires from the vehicles could be deposited.

Alaska Pollution Control will be collecting the fluids from the refrigerators and vehicles at those sites and Interstate Batteries plans to provide totes in which used batteries can be placed for recycling.

Various community councils and local groups helped ensure that the event went off with as few glitches as possible. Several businesses helped by providing food and beverages to the volunteers who manned the seven locations, and the Sutton Baptist Fellowship and Talkeetna Veterans of Foreign Wars Hall housed the members of the Guard.

Several local radio stations helped with advertisements and public service announcements, and Matanuska Telephone Association provided 12 cellular telephones to help volunteers and staff coordinate the event.

Some of the donated services were unique in nature, Dale said. The Sutton collection site was located in a remote area, she said, and there was some concern that equipment left at the location overnight may be vandalized. To prevent any vandalism, the village public safety officers at Chickaloon Village provided surveillance of the site throughout the weekend.

Throughout the weekend, all vehicles that came in were cross-referenced through the Alaska State Troopers' records management division to see if any of the vehicles were listed as stolen. Dale said no vehicles brought in over the weekend were found to be stolen.

Dale said extensive work was also done by students at Alaska Job Corps. They helped staff the office, built signs for the various collection sites and helped in assorted other ways, Dale said.

The Alaska Army National Guard used the weekend as a training mission to help Guardsmen develop communication and reconnaissance skills. They began the weekend with a goal of bringing in 250 loads of metal, appliances and junk cars and, Dale said, by the time the weekend was over, they exceeded their expectations.

"That means more training for them and more cleaned up for the borough," Dale said. "Because of this training, we benefit and they benefit - it's excellent."

There was no charge for Guard pickup of items that were located within the areas where the Guardsmen were stationed for the event. This year, they collected junk from areas surrounding Sutton, Houston, Talkeetna and outside of Wasilla.

Dale and other staff in the borough's code compliance office are already planning for next year's cleanup effort. The Guard, she said, must have applications in for training events such as this earlier this year than they have in the past, so Valley community councils will be receiving applications for participation in next year's event in just a few weeks. The borough's level of participation, she said, will depend on the response of the community councils.

"We'll see what interest we have among community councils in the borough," Dale said.