Fallon Continued.
We awoke at 7 AM to three women in the kitchen cooking breakfast for us. I still can’t get over how incredibly welcoming and wonderful Fallon has been to us. After eating our french toast, scrambled eggs, strawberries, and cherries, Sue came and picked us up for our radio interview. DJ Ladigo Travis, of classic country music station KHWG 750 AM, interviewed the three of us about Face Aids and the Ride Against Aids. It was so cool to be in a radio studio and see how it’s really done. I felt like a celebrity. Sue also presented us with three copies of Fallon’s newspaper, the Lahontan Valley News, with our picture on page 6. The caption says we’re all biking, which is a bit misleading, but that just goes to show how important fact checking is. Sue also took us to lunch, showed us around Fallon, and took us to city hall, where she introduced us to the mayor, who presented us with Fallon medals and pins. Fallon is incredible.
At 3 PM, I met with the city engineer, Jim Souba, who also serves as the town’s public works director, superintendent of water, superintendent of waste water, superintendent of electrical power, airport manager, and landfill manager—being city engineer for a town of 9,258 people forces some jobs to be combined. We spent a lot of time talking about the town’s lack of recycling (although residents can take recyclables to a transfer center about 5 miles outside of town) and composting program, as well as the landfill, which he owns and operates. Fallon has put a lot of thought into implementing a recycling program in the town, but collecting and shipping all of the plastics, paper, cardboard, metals, and glass is expensive. As it is, people complain about paying for their garbage pickup, so he doubts they would be willing to pay even more for recycling. “This is the wild west. Right, wrong, or different, that’s just the nature of rural Nevada,” he says. “You don’t just tell people what to do.” Despite these challenges, Souba is working with a professor from WNC, who held a class called Environmental Problems in Nevada this past year. They examined several recycling programs that have failed—and been successful—in hopes of designing a lasting one for Fallon. How best to design the recycling program is still being studied, but Souba wants to implement it in the near future.
Right outside of city hall
When I asked about the feasibility of a city-wide compost program, Souba says they hadn’t considered implementing one, but that it was an interesting idea. He says he has room at his landfill for compost rows, and that if he bought a chipper, the program may be feasible. Fallon residents could bring their organic waste for curbside pickup, and would get rich compost product in return. Souba himself composts all of his organic waste, and guestimates that 5% of the Fallon residents compost as well. His motivations for recycling and composting, however, are to divert waste from the landfill, which can fill up quickly and is expensive to maintain.
After our meeting, I went on a quick run around town. Then, Sue picked us up and took us to wine tasting and dinner, which made for a fantastic Friday night. We’re leaving Fallon tomorrow and embarking on our journey across the loneliest road in America, route 50. It should be interesting, to say the least.
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