A city worker moves steaming mulch last week.

Webster City will reopen its green waste site for the disposal of tree waste today, but with restrictions.

The site at the east end of Ohio Street will only be open from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m. today, Wednesday, Thursday and Monday, November 13. It will be closed Friday and throughout the weekend. This is so city staff can monitor the site. The city will accept tree waste only from Webster City residents.

Professional contractors are still not allowed to dump at the site.

The compromise came during the City Council of Webster City’s Monday meeting when Logan Welch pushed the city to reinstate an “amenity” that was suspended weeks ago when a towering mulch pile spontaneously combusted. That prompted the city to work with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to develop a long-term way of better handling shredded trees.

“I see this as an amenity we offered for years,” Welch said at the meeting. “Do we have plans for a temporary site?”

City Manager Daniel Ortiz-Hernandez said the DNR advised not using the site for tree waste until the city has a permanent solution.

“This is a permanent solution,” Welch responded, referencing a burner the city plans to order once it gets the DNR’s permission.

It could take the DNR up to 140 days to complete the permit, the city manager said. It will likely be March before the actual air burner will be delivered to Webster City.

Opening the city’s green waste site today is a test to determine how quickly it may refill.

In the meantime, the city hauled an estimated 20 to 30 tons of existing mulch to the North Central Iowa Regional Solid Waste Agency site south of Fort Dodge, but due to equipment troubles at the site the mulch has yet to be spread out so that it can be evaluated as a potential cover at the site, Ortiz-Hernandez told the council Monday.

Webster City has about 4,600 tons of processed mulch that must be removed from the local site, Assistant City Manager Biridiana Bishop estimated about a week ago.