The Highland County recycling coordinator met with the county commissioners Wednesday to provide an update on programs and services currently available and the development of future projects.
Dori Bishop spoke to commissioners Rich Graves, Mike Rector and Gary Heaton on the progress of the county's recycling program in detail of her ideas on cleaning up the Rocky Fork Lake area.
"Litter pick-up is a good start," Bishop said, "but it's only a start. I've been talking to a lot of people to expand that into removing junk cars and abandoned trailers. I'm working on an informational brochure for that right now."
After speaking to local authorities and contacting various junkyards in the area, Bishop told the commissioners that any abandoned trailer had multiple recycling capabilities, involving the scrap metal and any appliances inside the trailer.
Bishop reminded the commissioners that Earth Day will take place April 22 and she has been working on student activities for that day.
"We always have a three-day field day for the schools at Rocky Fork Lake. This year, though, it will be moved to May because of some testing conflicts," Bishop said.
Another reminder was the electrical recycling day, to be held this year Sept. 15.
This is the county's fourth year holding the electrical recycling day which allows businesses and residents the opportunity to recycle items including: old television sets, computers, printers, fax machines, etc.
The drop off for the recycling day has always been held at the Hillsboro City Garage, however, Bishop said she is considering moving the location to the Highland County Fairgrounds and holding it over two days.
In another appointment, the commissioners met with county engineer Dean Otworth to discuss the county's contract with Woolpert, an engineering, architectural and geospatial consulting firm.
According to Otworth, the state had contracted last year with the company to do digital orthophotography and light imaging detection and ranging across the state.
Doing so, Otworth said, will provide the state and county with an extremely sharp image of the topography of the land.
In order to get that image, Woolpert will be flying over the county starting this coming Monday. Once they begin, Otworth said they should be finished in a few weeks.
Otworth said he has two crews of two county employees going out to different target areas to mark specific monuments so that the pilot will have specific markers to map the county by.
The county had an orthophotograph done in 2001. The new one will be an update to the original photograph, which will be in color now and sharper in image quality.
"By doing this we'll be able to see the changes that have happened to our county since 2001. This is a refinement and an improvement to our existing system we started in 2001," Otworth said.
After the photographs are taken, Otworth said they will most likely be available in the early part of 2008.
