10 years, and it more than paid for itself through sales of carbon credits. That particular initiative is on hold due to market conditions, but the county has explored other options to harness the byproduct for generating electricity or fueling vehicles with compressed methane.
A fee is charged when anyone makes a delivery to the scrap tire facility. The metal collected is sold for scrap, and, currently, a paper mill in Georgia buys the rubber for fuel.“ There’ s tremendous energy in tires. I wanted to be on the front end of that,” Tindell said.“ It might be a significant future revenue stream for the county, as well as protecting the environment.”
Buildings & Grounds
Coffee is one of the few counties in Alabama that has assigned oversight of buildings and grounds to the engineer. When Tindell’ s phone rings, it might be a complaint about a pothole, but it could just as easily be“ anything
We stand a better chance statewide,” he said,“ convincing legislators as a whole to go out on a limb for their constituents than what Coffee County would by itself.
Randy Tindell’ s first tour of duty in Coffee County was as assistant engineer under Mark Pool in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
from a toilet not flushing to‘ we need to add a new wing on,’” he said, laughing.
Coming to a close is one round of capital improvements that included energy conservation projects for all county buildings. The energy savings are sufficient to repay the loan for this batch of improvements. Looking ahead,
the commission asked Administrator Rod Morgan and Tindell to find a way to pay for expenses that can be anticipated without borrowing money.
Under normal conditions a new roof might be expected to last for decades, but it won’ t last forever. With that in mind, the commission has established a mechanism to set money aside for these longer-range projects.
“ At the end of 20 years, there will be enough money in the account to do what we had to borrow to do this time,” Tindell said.
For all Coffee County’ s resilience, entrepreneurship and ingenuity, it needs the Alabama Legislature to invest in local roads and bridges this year about as badly as any county.
“ We have desperate needs on local roads,” Tindell said.“ There is no funding available to counties like us.”
A past president of the Association of County Engineers of Alabama, he said this is a time for counties to stick together.
“ We stand a better chance statewide,” he said,“ convincing legislators as a whole to go out on a limb for their constituents than what Coffee County would by itself.” n
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