After dealing with the infestation of the Asian jumping worm at its composting site for the past two months, the City of Sturgeon Bay has heated piles of wood chips that can now be picked up on the hill at Shiloh Road. Sturgeon Bay Municipal Services Director Mike Barker says the city worked with the Department of Natural Resources to create a plan to heat the wood chip piles to kill the worms and any cocoons.
Barker adds that the compost site remains closed due to the difficulty in getting the temperatures of the compost above 115 degrees to make sure the worms are killed.
A statewide problem this summer, the DNR says jumping worms quickly transform perfect soil into dry pellets depriving nutrients from the ground and causing some plants to struggle to survive. Barker notes that even though the composting remains halted, you can still drop off brush and wood debris at the Sturgeon Bay site.
