In time for summer gardening, the town of Signal Mountain is loading mulch for a $5 fee per truckload, and citizens are lining up for the new service.
"From my understanding; I've never scooped mulch but I understand it's quite the task," said Town Manager Honna Rogers. "We have something that scoops it for them. [The process] moves really quickly. It's just been very popular. People were lined up and down the road waiting to get in."
The town will continue offering the mulch the first Saturday of every month through October from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Recycle Center. Whether or not the service will be offered next year remains to be seen.
"After the storms we had such a surplus of mulch when we chipped the trees that came down," Rogers said.
The $5 fee is only to help offset employee costs to man the operation, she said. There is no limit to the amount of mulch people can take, but they are charged the fee each time they come through the line.
Rogers said when they first offered the service in May some people came through two or three times before they had to start turning people away. They did not offer the service in June, but will in July.