Final Debris Removal Pass On Monday

The contractors removing tree debris from Tulsa will begin the third and final pass through all Tulsa neighborhoods beginning on Monday. Debris should be piled in the right-of-way, which extends several feet past the curb in most areas, but not in the street.

Debris should not be piled beneath low-hanging branches of living trees or too close to fences, mail boxes, utility equipment, or other obstructions which would prevent removal crews from accessing it with mechanical grapplers.

Vehicles should not be parked in front of debris piles because the crews cannot reach the debris if it is blocked by parked cars.

The debris removal contractor hauled 2,562 cubic yards of limbs on Thursday, bringing the total since operations began in early January to 2,333,273 cubic yards. That is enough to cover 364.5 football fields three feet deep.

The city is paying $3.79 per cubic yard for hauling and the total bill so far is $8,843,105 and growing. That does not include the cost of monitoring operations or the cost of grinding the tree limbs into mulch and hauling it away for disposal.

The mulch-grinding contractor on Thursday hauled 7,743 cubic yards of wood chips from Johnson Park to a rural disposal site where it is being mixed with topsoil. So far some 110,656 cubic yards have been hauled away from the Johnson Park temporary disposal site. That is enough to cover 17 football fields with wood chips three feet deep. The cost is $4.68 per cubic yard for a total, so far, of $517,870.

A third contractor is monitoring the debris and disposal operations. The monitoring costs, as of March 1, total $2,434,849.

The bill for all three contractors for work done so far is $11.8 million.

The City expects that much of the debris removal costs will be reimbursed by the federal government through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Anyone with questions or who believes their property was missed when haulers worked on their streets can report it to the Mayor's Action Center at 596-2100.