WORLAND – The Washakie County Extension office, in conjunction with the City of Worland and the Worland Fire Department, recently installed a community compost pit at Newell Sargent Park. The project, initiated by Caitlin Youngquist of the Extension office, is one effort to save the city excess dump fees by recycling grass clippings and compostable materials created and collected by the city.

Youngquist proposed the program at the September city council session, in an effort to provide a cost-effective solution to excess disposal of solid waste. Working with the Public Works and Parks departments, Youngquist devised a plan and gathered materials to start the project for an aeriated system to dry large amounts of compost material.

During the last week of November, Youngquist and the contributing city departments developed and installed the system, with 6,000 gallons of water supplied by the fire department to wet the clippings and leaves to begin the composting process. The aeriation system, paid for by the city, circulates air through the pile, speeding up the composting process. Two days after the pile was built, Youngquist took readings and discovered the internal temperature had already risen to over 100 degrees, signifying that composting had begun.

A long-used organic agriculture supplement, composted materials are created by and aerobic process, simply wetting, airing, and turning clippings and excess materials to create a nitrogen-rich soil base. The addition of worms often speed up the process.

"This is really a pilot project," remarked Youngquist. "This first batch of compost won't be ready until next spring, and will be used at the city's discretion." Youngquist noted that prime temperatures for the process are between 110-140 degrees, and the pile was at 115 this week.

The Extension currently operates a smaller, simpler compost pile at the community garden, which is used strictly for gardening purposes. The larger, city pile can be used for a variety of projects, although the starter pile represents only a fraction of the clippings usually reserved for disposal at the landfill.

"It's really up to the city, but in the long term it would be great to create more of a usable product and haul less to the dump," said Youngquist. "Plus, it will save [the city] money."