At its June 4 meeting, the Barnard Selectboard voted to hire local contractors to begin work on several safety improvements to the town’s transfer station, which the board said it would like to see completed, “ASAP.”
After previous improvement plans failed to come to fruition, partly due to the “demand on the transfer station,” said Selectboard vice chair Richard Lancaster, the Selectboard is now determined to figure out a solution. At its meeting, the board voted to find a local builder to construct two sets of stairs with railings into the office, add new double doors with access to the garage recycling area, and hire a local fabricator to fix the trash gate and cover.
Lancaster explained that the two staircases currently at the transfer station building — one leading to the front door of the office and one leading from the office into the garage section — have uneven steps with no railings. He said constructing more even steps with railings will satisfy state safety requirements.
The installation of double doors into the garage recycling area will also provide safer access compared to the current situation, where entering the bay requires opening the garage doors and risks snow on the garage’s roof falling onto someone, said Lancaster.
There are several other items on the Selectboard’s to-do list for improvements that would “benefit the flow” of the transfer station, according to Lancaster.
An exact cost estimate for the improvements has not been determined by the Selectboard, but “We’re ballparking it probably between $2,000 to $7,000,” Lancaster said.
For more on this, please see our June 12 edition of the Vermont Standard.
