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Jessamine County Detention Center inmate Jamie Mulligan shoveled rubber mulch at the playground at City-County Park on Thursday. (Photo by Mike Moore/mmoore@jessaminejournal.com / November 15, 2012) |
A $17,500 grant allowed Nicholasville-Jessamine County Parks and Recreation to purchase 35 tons of rubber mulch that was spread out over the playground area at City-County Park on Thursday.
“Every year, we’ve got to put new mulch down, and it gets rather expensive to cover that big of an area,” parks director Duane McCuddy said the 20,000-square-foot area.
The grant was obtained by Jessamine County director of public services Mike Cassidy.
“It was through the division of waste management, and it was a crumb-rubber grant,” Cassidy said. “The purpose of the grant is that they are trying to find other uses for the tires other than just sending them to landfills. They grind them up and remove any metal in the tires, and they use it for mulch on athletic fields and playgrounds.”
Cassidy also said the new mulch requires little maintenance.
“We were trying to offset the cost of what parks and rec has to pay,” he said. “It think they were having to (replace mulch) yearly, but this stuff, I think there is a 16-year life expectancy on it. So we shouldn’t have to do anything with it, other than add mulch if we lose some of it over the years.”
An inmate work crew from the Jessamine County Detention Center spread the mulch over the playground Thursday morning, under the supervision of jail and parks and recreation staff.
“That (inmate work crews) is saving us a lot of dollars and muscle,” McCuddy said.
