Boyle County Judge-Executive Howard Hunt has taken the bull by the horns and is forging ahead with a plan for dead livestock composting. The site will be in a remote area, at the Alum Springs Convenience Center, instead of the previously discussed Perryville Convenience Center, Hunt said Tuesday morning. 

“You won’t even know it’s there,” he said. 

Hunt said he wanted the carcass composting site to be at the “best possible location,” which turned out to be the Alum Springs center. Plus, “This works out to be less controversial,” he said.

Last Thursday, he and four magistrates visited the Franklin County livestock composting site. They toured the facility and met with the leading composting expert from the University of Kentucky, Steve Higgins, Hunt said. “It was positively eye-opening” to see how well their program was operating, he added.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hunt was at the Alum Springs center with other officials to determine exactly where to place the composting area. He hopes to have the site ready to receive its first animal carcasses by the first of April, with a driver hired to pick up, drop off and run the facility.

Angie Muncy, solid waste coordinator for the county, is also applying for state grants to purchase equipment and resources needed to get the facility up and running, Hunt said. 

Last week, magistrates voted 5-1 to approve an agreement, under which the Boyle County Conservation District will provide up to $70,000 annually to help cover the costs of dead animal removal. Anything beyond that $70,000 would have to come from the county’s general fund.

In the first year, $30,000 of that amount would come in the form of a vehicle for dead animal removal that was originally gifted to the county by the conservation district, according to county officials.

That leaves $40,000 in conservation district funding that would be available “on demand” as needed to cover county costs, Hunt said at the time.