Council to discuss compost, U.S. 287 study

The Longmont Sustainability Advisory Board will present to the City Council Tuesday about increasing composting availability for residents and businesses.

A1 Organics, the city’s compost processor, announced last year that beginning April 1, 2023, it would no longer accept compostable items such as paper cups, plates, utensils and other paper products due to excessive contamination.

Now, residents can only place food scraps and yard waste in their curbside composting containers.

When announcing the change, A1 Organics said that non-compostable look-alike items often ended up in its compost stream, which took time and labor to remove.

Contamination significantly increased A1 Organics’ operating costs thus making composting less economically viable, the announcement said.

In October, the Sustainability Advisory Board approved a resolution in support of increasing the ability of Longmont residents and businesses to compost all reasonably compostable materials.

The resolution’s specific language asks the City Council to “explore with haste” options such as partnering with A1 Organics on an educational campaign to help eliminate non-compostable plastics, glass and other materials from entering the compost stream.

The resolution also advocates for partnering with neighboring

communities to “ensure and support the viability of regional, large-scale industrial composting facilities.”

Longmont Mayor Joan Peck made a motion directing staff to engage in the conversations Boulder County is having about a regional composting facility during the April 9 City Council meeting.

The council voted unanimously in support of Peck’s motion.

In addition to composting availability, the City Council is expected to discuss the findings from Boulder County’s U.S. 287 Vision Zero Safety and Mobility Study during its regular session Tuesday.

The study, which started in 2022 and was finalized in December 2023, examined the roughly 24-mile stretch of U.S. 287 between Midway Boulevard in Broomfield and Horseshoe Circle at the Boulder-larimer county line.

The plan calls for “specific measures to eliminate fatal and severe injury crashes” along U.S. 287, namely a center median barrier in the rural sections of the corridor north and south of Longmont, according to a council memo.

Council member Diane Crist, who previously served on the city’s Transportation Advisory Board, said Monday that she has received complaints, particularly from businesses along North Main Street (U.S. 287), about traffic coming into the city at a high rate of speed.

“It’s an important study to just have the facts and figure out how to slow down the traffic (and) how to make it safer,” Crist said.

In January, two men died in a head-on crash on U.S. 287 just north of Longmont.

Tuesday’s regular City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in the City Council Chambers, 350 Kimbark St.