Round Rock City Council unanimously approved more than $4.6 million in contracts and purchases to assist with ice storm cleanup efforts at its Thursday, Feb. 23 meeting.

A $3 million contract with TFR Enterprises for disaster response will include brush pickup, grinding and disposal services, and a $1.5 million contract with Austin Wood Recycling will include brush grinding and hauling services. Council also ratified the purchase of a $115,286.25 brush chipper. 

The contracts include work already completed by TFR Enterprises and Austin Wood Recycling as they assisted crews from City departments in cleanup efforts in the weeks following the storm event. Central Texas Refuse, who the City contracts with for trash and recycling collection, is also conducting brush pickup throughout the community.

Initial reports estimated that Winter Storm Mara created 1 million cubic yards of brush across the community, and the City of Round Rock is conducting the largest cleanup effort in its history.

In the days following the storm, the City began offering curbside pickup services and two drop-off locations for in-city residents to dispose of brush at no cost. At this time, it’s estimated that the City has collected more than 142,000 cubic yards of tree debris that fell through curbside requests and the brush recycling drop-off locations. That equals more than four years’ worth of normal collections at the City’s Brush Recycling Center. It is estimated that approximately 358,000 cubic yards are left to be collected by the City.

“The City of Round Rock, our staff and our contractors have been hard at work to conduct these cleanup efforts, and we are already approximately halfway through our initial brush pickups,” Mayor Craig Morgan said. “We want to commend our residents for their patience as we continue to work through requests over the next several weeks. We’re going to do everything we can to get everything picked up and get it done as fast as possible.”

To learn more about brush disposal efforts and to view a dashboard and map showing which neighborhoods contractors are currently in, visit roundrocktexas.gov/brush.