WAUKESHA - Waukesha County awarded a 10-year contract Wednesday to Purple Cow Organics LLC to compost yard and wood materials collected from 16 local communities.

Contract approval was recommended by the county's Department of Parks and Land Use and finalized by the County Board's Finance Committee. Purple Cow won the contract through competitive bidding.

The composting site is at the county-owned gravel pit in the Town of Genesee, on Highway C and south of Highway 18.

In addition to the 16 communities, Waukesha County's parks and public works departments will drop off their organic recyclables there.  Residents cannot drop off materials there.

Sandy Syburg, president of Purple Cow Organics, said his firm operates municipal composting sites in Wauwatosa, Muskego and three in Dane County. Purple Cow has offices in Oconomowoc and Middleton.

Syburg said he loathes calling leftover yard and wood materials waste.

"It's not waste until it's wasted," he said. "Purple Cow turns once-living plant materials into high quality soils."

Syburg said Purple Cow compost is organic and used by landscapers, homeowners and farmers. It's available at independent garden centers, he said.

 

About 8,000 tons to be composted each year

The county will pay Purple Cow $12 for each ton of waste collected, said Perry Lindquist, Waukesha County land resources manager. Purple Cow is expected to compost about 8,000 tons of municipal materials annually, meaning the county would be billed about $96,000, he said.

The site also will serve as a drop-off for landscape contractors, which should increase the tonnage of his composting materials, Syburg said. Purple Cow will establish a processing facility inside the gravel pit, he said.

The county had operated the composting station for several years, but decided the best way to continue the site was to contract out its operation to a private vendor, he said. The county's operational permit expires at the end of October and Purple Cow is expected to launch its operations by then, Lindquist said.

Purple Cow will need a joint conditional use permit from the county and town to operate the composting business, Lindquist said. The firm will also need a permit from the state Department of Natural Resources.

 

Committee recommends approving Sussex land swap

In other action, the committee also recommended approving a land swap to accommodate the proposed Mammoth Springs LLC retail and apartment development in Sussex.

The recommendation will go before the County Board for final approval next week.

Sussex Administrator Jeremy Smith has said that the county trail for bicyclists and pedestrians passes through the middle of the proposed development. The committee approved a recommendation from the Waukesha County Department of Parks and Land Use that the trail be relocated to the edge of the development.

The trail runs from Merton to Menomonee Falls. Mammoth Springs is five buildings with 50 living units in each, near Highway 74 and Main St., on the site of the old Mammoth Springs Cannery.

Three stores are planned for the development, which is expected to increase the village's tax base by $19 million, Smith said.

Mammoth Springs has agreed to build the alternative route and maintain it, Lindquist said. Ownership of the new route would be transferred to the county, he said.