By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
A pilot and mechanic that works at the Great Bend Municipal Airport on a
daily basis addressed the Great Bend City Council Monday night out of concern about
trash and debris that exists around the airport grounds.
Sunflower Diversified Services owns a property in the Industrial Park, just
south of the airport, where they store recyclable materials that will be
shipped out to recycling mills in different cities. The recycling program
stores the materials in open-top containers outside, which causes problems of
blowing out on windy days.
Cameron Sweitzer told the city council he has filed complaints with
code enforcement about the problem for the past two years with little results
in fixing the problem.
"It's disgusting," said Sweitzer. "The right-of-ways, farm fields, the ditches that flow to the Arkansas River...they're all filled with milk jugs, pop cans and shredded paper. Common sense says we shouldn't store these things outside in open-top containers in Kansas. The wind blows and blows it all over."
Sweitzer said he has picked up tax documents, accounting information from the Great Bend Public Library and other various forms that were intended to be recycled.
"The trash that ends up on airport runway lighting concerns me, as far as my life, my property and anyone that flies in and out of the airport," said Sweitzer. "It's a big thing to me. Their recklessness could potentially injure me."
Great Bend Code Enforcement employee Hoyt Kinsinger echoed Sweitzer’s concern
that the situation is a mess.
Sunflower Executive Director Shelby Zuniga told the council the company is very aware of the situation and are currently attacking the issue. During the last week of December, Sunflower ended their working relationship with their former director of production and recycling. Mandy Grizzell stepped into the position in January to get the facility caught up.
"We were getting behind with recycling," said Zuniga. "For the last two years, our facility has been backing up during COVID when we were really short staffed. We have 4'-x-4' boxes we store the materials in, and we typically cover them with pallets to keep the material down."
Zuniga said a Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) inspector came out to the facility last Friday and did not cite any concerns.
"One, we know that reactively we have to pick up when the winds blow like they did last week," said Zuniga. "Proactively, we are getting ahead of the issue so that it doesn't become an issue anymore. I do we feel have staff in place that is going to make that happen."
Zuniga informed the council that Sunflower crews typically go out to the site once
a week to clean up debris that blew away. Sunflower is also applying for a
grant through KDHE for better storage options for materials to help keep the
product more secure.