City of ML focuses on parks for storm cleanup

MOSES LAKE - Residents will have to wait to get storm debris out of their yard for a few weeks unless they do it themselves or hire out.

Moses Lake Public Works nor Moses Lake Parks and Recreation departments will be doing any special pickup service right away. "The immediate response is city parks," Moses Lake Parks Superintendent Roland Gonzales said.

A total of 35 trees were downed in city parks and numerous dangerous branches are priority in terms of public safety, Gonzales said. These hazards resulted in a close call at the Moses Lake Public Library, where a tree barely missed the building, and the temporary closure of Blue Heron Park due to uprooted trees and low hanging branches, which Gonzales anticipates will reopen tomorrow or Thursday.

"We can understand we all have a lot of work to do," Gonzales said.

"We would like to have a special event for the community, but we won't get out there until October," he said, referring to the bi-annual chipper program the department hosts.

This year the free program begins Oct. 7 in the southern neighborhoods, like the Peninsula area, will progress to central Moses Lake including parts of Pioneer Way and the Guffen-Eccles neighborhood, and the final week will focus in the southeastern corner to include parts of Pioneer Way and Division Street, and some northern Moses Lake homes.

Gonzales said residents may not store debris on the sidewalks or streets, and to pile them somewhere out of the way for a few weeks until the chipper program is in your neighborhood, and then to move the unwanted branches to the front of the yard or the sidewalk.

Parks and Rec will take all they can, which does not include tree trunks, leaves (leaves on branches are OK), branches more than 4 inches around, or wood with nails in it.

For more information on the chipper program, pick up the new Parks and Rec Winter Program coming out soon, visit the department's Facebook page, or call the city Public Works at (509) 764-3951.