The Flathead County Solid Waste District is starting a roadside litter pickup program aimed at supplementing the volunteer work done through the state’s Adopt A Highway program.

The district has earmarked $50,000 this year to hire a supervisor and two laborers to clean the road ditches. The first project will be U.S. 93 from the Stillwater River bridge near Eisinger Automotive Group in Kalispell to the Montana 40 intersection, county Public Works Director Dave Prunty told the commissioners last week. That’s the stretch of highway that goes by the county landfill.

Prunty said the county has used temporary labor at times in the past for highway litter collection. The money budgeted will pay for roughly eight weeks of work through the summer season.

“It’s going to function just like Adopt A Highway,” he said.

The Montana Department of Transportation operates the volunteer Adopt A Highway program in which an individual or group of people sign an agreement with the state to adopt a 2-mile section of highway for two years. The agreement requires trash pickup twice a year, which generally is done in the spring and fall.

“The county will do it in between,” Prunty said. “It looks horrible in the spring. They (Adopt A Highway volunteers) get it clean, but it takes one pickup to go from clean to terrible if they don’t secure loads.

“We’re living off tourist dollars and we get comments how bad it looks out here,” Prunty added.

Details of the new litter pick-up program are still being worked out. Prunty said he has asked the state if its highway workers could pick up the bags filled by the county workers. If that’s not possible the county workers haul the bags to the landfill.

“We’re going to learn as we go,” he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or [email protected].