Feature Story
How Does Your Garden Grow?
With Compost - and Steve Martin has lots of it.
Steve Martin loads compost into the screen machine.
Steve and Jody Martin started a garden behind their newly-purchased Victorian home shortly after they moved their family to Dayton in 1996. But in order to get compost, Steve had to drive his pickup to Lewiston, Idaho. "I knew that the best compost comes from yard waste," says Martin, "and Dayton had lots of it. But it was mostly being burned." He recalls driving around town in the fall and seeing dozens of smoking burn piles.
So Martin, who was employed as a biologist with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, started a compost business on the side. At the time, the state Department of Ecology had grant funds available to help communities improve air quality. Martin worked with Columbia County and the City of Dayton to obtain funds to establish a composting facility at an old rock quarry owned by the county on Eager Road, about a mile north of Dayton.
Martin checks a compost pile's temperature.
Grant funds were used to pour a one-acre asphalt slab and put in a containment pond. The county purchased a tractor, a motorized screen and a large aerator to till piles of compost. In 1999, Martin's business, Columbia Compost, leased the property and equipment from the county. Then he started collecting yard waste.
At the site, the material is ground up, passed through a screen and placed in rows, approximately six feet high and ten feet wide. The material sits all winter cooking. Literally. Once a week, Martin checks the temperature at the center of the piles, in which microbes are busy breaking down the wood and plant material. "The material needs to stay above 130 degrees to kill bacteria," he says. "Otherwise you end up with just a pile of rotted wood that really stinks." A large volume of material is required in order to maintain the high temperature, Martin says. "That's why it's hard to make compost in the back yard."
Martin now works as Executive Director of the Snake River Salmon Recovery Board and continues to run Columbia Compost as a side business. The company has a number of outlets for the material it produces. "A lot of the big chunks get sold to Boise Cascade as hog fuel without being composted," he says. Martin also separates out smaller material and donates it as playground bark for the Dayton schools.
Columbia Compost has diverted more than 10,000 cubic yards of material away from the landfill and back yard burn barrels, producing more than 3,000 cubic yards of compost since the operation began. "About eighty percent of our compost is sold to nurseries in Tri-Cities," Martin says. The company's compost is also available for sale locally at City Lumber in Dayton. "I encourage local gardeners to buy their compost from City Lumber," says Martin. He adds that Columbia Compost will sell directly to consumers only in quantities of five yards or more.
Piles of yard waste await the grinder.
"This has been a great experience, says Steve, "and it shows what can be accomplished when companies and agencies work as partners with a common goal." Finding a new use for wood waste without burning it was an important goal, he stresses, but there was no way the government agencies could have accomplished this on their own. And he adds, "there's no way I could have done it on my own either."
This year marks the 10-year anniversary of the partnership between the City, County and Columbia Compost. "It's a testament to the value of partnerships to develop local solutions for regional challenges," says Martin. Those interested in learning how to contribute yard waste should contact Dayton City Hall at (509) 382-2361 or the Columbia County Engineer's office at (509) 382-2534.