Brush-control spraying to begin

The Putnam County Highway Department has contracted with The Daltons of Warsaw to perform brush control treatment in the road right of way in Franklin, Jackson, Floyd, Marion, Greencastle and Monroe townships within Putnam County, Highway Supervisor Michael Ricketts has announced.

The brush control operations will be performed in the road right of way and may occur in an area of abutting property.

The estimated start date is the week of Sept. 17.

Purpose of the county highway brush control treatment program is to control the growth of specific types of weeds, brush and/or low-hanging tree limbs to improve visibility and safety for the vehicular traffic and/or pedestrians that use the county roads under county highway jurisdiction.

The county highway performs brush control operations through the use of tractor mowers and hydraulic brush hogs that mechanically cut weeds, brush and trees in road right of ways. Any property that has maintained/mowed grass will absolutely not be sprayed under any circumstances. This is for brush control only.

The Putnam County Highway Department has been authorized to supplement the mechanical cutting of weeds and brush with herbicide treatment as an additional method to be used to control weeds and brush. Implementation and scheduling of herbicide operations is weather sensitive and therefore, subject to existing weather conditions occurring at the time of the application operations.

As a result of weather conditions and other operational factors, the exact program start and ending dates as set forth are estimates.

The county highway is not able to project the rate of the brush control progress and therefore cannot determine the exact date the contractor will implement operations on any given road or segment of road, Ricketts said.