EDITOR’S NOTE: It’s been a busy year for Barton County Departments. This is the second of two stories based on County Administrator Richard Boeckman’s year-end wrap-up he gave at the County Commission meeting Monday morning.
 
It’s not all about trash at the Barton County Landfill. In his report to the Barton County Commission Monday morning, Solid Waste Manager Mark Witt said his staff also had to deal with critters.
During 2013, department employees rescued a young fawn that was separated from its mother on the other side of the facility’s perimeter fence. With help from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, landfill equipment operators were able to capture the young fawn and place it over the fence where its mother immediately retrieved it.
Later in the year, employees rescued a kitten that somehow got trapped in one of the department’s large waste compactors. The kitten was coaxed out of the machine by the recording of a cat meowing through an employee’s cell phone.
The kitten was adopted by another employee since its mother was nowhere to be found.
As for more traditional solid waste matters, the landfill collected:
• 22,770.51 tons of municipal solid waste
• 5,618.54 tons of construction/demolition waste
• 324 tires received
• 600 mattresses diverted to Hutchinson Correctional Facility for recycling
• 215 bicycles collected and transported to Ellsworth Correctional Facility for refurbishing.
• 19.85 tons of metal diverted to recycling
• 11,826 loads of waste 
• 37.05 tons of animal carcasses
• 63.26 tons of asbestos
• 63.16 tons of blast media
• 2,297.13 tons of brine impacted soil
• 146.58 tons of oilfield gun barrels
• 337.71 tons of other contaminated soils
• 4,847.52 tons of petroleum contaminated soils
• 423.95 tons of railroad ballast material
• 1,276.56 tons of oil decanter sludge
• 407.96 tons of other special wastes
• Total estimated at 38,544.68 tons.
In other news:
• Estimated revenue: $1,258,794.62
• Started accepting credit/debit cards. Two hundred thirty eight customers have used this.
• Although drought conditions persisted from the following year, late July ended like a “monsoon.” A two-three week period of heavy rainfall presented problems, especially dealing with the large amount of storm water in low areas.
Around 7.2 million gallons was pumped away.
• Venture Corporation completed asphalt overlay of the main access roads at the facility late this fall at a cost of  $176,028.00.
In other departments:
County Engineer Clark Rusco
 • Truss bridge replacement southeast of Great Bend. Barton County was notified in early 2013 that this bridge would need to have some brush piles placed at the site to replace the spotted skunk habitat that would be lost during the construction of the bridge. The bridge deck was placed and all of the construction should be done in another month or two.
This project will be approximately $400,000. The grant was a 80/20 grant. Kansas Department of Transportation will reimburse Barton County for the construction engineering, which will result in a net project cost of approximately 10 percent.
L&M Construction handled the job.
• Repair of the Ellinwood Bridge over the Arkansas River began in November. Bridges Incorporated is the contractor for this project that involves replacing damaged pin and hanger assemblies and expansion joints.
This project will be completed in early 2014.
• Received funding from the Kansas Department of Transportation High Risk Rural Road program for reinforced concrete boxes (used at the sites of bridges) on three corridors. There were 44 projects submitted for the $15 million in grants. Barton County received $700,000.
This project will begin in late 2014 or early 2015. The grant has a 90/10 cost share.
 • Applied for and received funding HRRR funds to replace regulatory and warning signs because of new nighttime sign reflectivity standards. This project is funded 100 per cent by KDOT.
• Converted GIS data into a format that could be accessed in Google Earth. Information for the disaster declarations was gathered with Road and Bridge applications. Road and Bridge used geo-tagged photographs to begin the work order process for repairs. The photographs simplified the FEMA process because each photograph had the latitude, longitude, time and date embedded in the picture.
• LiDAR is a remote sensing technology that measures distance by illuminating a target with a laser and analyzing the reflected light. The LiDAR data was just recently developed for Barton County which show more accurate two-foot contour intervals. They have helped understand flow of storm water affecting Ellinwood and other applications.

Road and Bridge Director Dale Phillips
 • Overlayed 41 miles of asphalt
• Sealed 96.5 miles with rock
• Cleared 36,400 miles snow and ice using 3,400 tons of sand/salt
• Installed, replaced or repaired 78 culverts
• Repaired or cleaned up 62 bridges
• Mowed 2,400 miles in three passes. Mowing right of ways also prevents snow drifting.
• Repaired, installed or replaced 1,594 signs. The department produces majority of signs.
• Emergency calls – 39 call for such things as road barricades, holes in bridges, accidents, signs stolen and/or vandalized, haystacks on roads, power poles on roadway, trees blown down and flooding.
• Responsible for 35 tagged vehicles and 40 equipment units.
• Weed Spraying – 16,259 acres sprayed by county personnel, 86,424 acres sprayed across the county, nearly 1,200 miles of county roadsides treated by county personnel and approximately 240 miles of KDOT roadsides treated by county personnel.
• Deliver, setup and pickup voting machines
• Marked 63 Graves and headstones
 
Environmental Management Judy Goreham
The new Barton County Zoning Regulations, Version II, were adopted and put into use on January 28, 2013. This completed a comprehensive review of the regulations that were first adopted in 2000. This undertaking took over four years to complete and countless hours of volunteer time from the very dedicated Barton County Planning Commission.
Currently, the Barton County Planning Commission is working on a review and update of the Barton County Comprehensive Plan. This was last completed in 2005.