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Protecting the Environment |
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Written by Tim Gobble, Sheriff
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Thursday, 18 February 2010 |
Statistics for the inmate work crews are in for January. According to the daily work house logs, inmates performed lawn care, landscaping and cleaning fences at Walker Valley High School, and cleaned up branches and cut trees at Taylor Elementary. They cleaned up salt and sand at Union Grove cemetery and cleared brush at the Charleston ballpark. They performed litter pick-up, cleaned walls and hallways, and stripped and waxed the floors at the Justice Center, as well as salting and sanding there after the recent snowfall. They hauled four tons of dirt from the Tri-State Exhibition Center to the inmate garden, helped out at the BCSO garage, performed litter pick-up on a number of county roadways and serviced maintenance equipment.
These work crews continue to perform well for the county, saving time and money. When you consider the costs of paying county employees or contractors to perform the same tasks that are now being done by the work crews, we have estimated the savings to taxpayers last year was approximately $1.1 million. This is just another way the BCSO is working to off-set expenses for the second largest public safety organization in Bradley County.
But inmates can only do so much and while they perform in a thorough and conscientious manner, all too often the roadways become littered again almost as soon as the crews get them cleaned. Where the crews will restore an area to its pristine nature, litter bugs seem to hit with a vengeance, leaving paper cups, fast food wrappers, paper bags, diapers, cigarette butts and pretty much anything else you can imagine.
This was made clear to me recently after driving through an area the inmates had recently cleaned and noticing it was already being choked with new trash and litter. If the public knew just how much litter the work crews clean from county roadways and public property each month, I think they would be surprised. But if they realized how quickly litter begins to re-accumulate, I think they would be shocked.
In most cases, the litter is tossed from the windows of moving cars or is blown from truck beds. The obvious solution would be to keep a litter bag in your car and use it. Upon returning home, it is a simple matter to deposit the litter bag in your outside trash can for regular curbside pickup. Or, litter can be disposed of in a dumpster.
Protecting the environment is an important aspect of public safety. If there are any doubts as to what the laws in Tennessee are regarding litter, you may want to clip this column out and keep it in your car. In Tennessee, a person commits littering who:
1). Knowingly places, drops or throws litter on any public or private property without permission and does not immediately remove it;
2). Negligently places or throws glass or other dangerous substances on or adjacent to water which the public has access to for swimming or wading, or on or within 50 feet of a public highway, or
3). Negligently discharges sewage, minerals, oil products or litter into any public waters or lakes within this state.
Anyone found guilty of violating these statutes can receive a fine, plus court costs, and may even face the possibility of having to perform community service.
Litter pick-up is just one area covered by the inmate work crews. They also perform duties at the Tri-State Exhibition Center, assist the County Road Dept., and the help with fleet maintenance at the BCSO garage.
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