EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — Eagle Mountain is facing an unusual problem that tumbled into town during Tuesday's wind storm.
To put it mildly, the town was overloaded with a tumbleweed invasion.
“Tumbleweeds are a twice-a-year occurrence in Eagle Mountain.” said Tyler Maffitt, the city's communications manager. “It typically takes place in the spring and the fall.”
While it is an event the city is prepared for, Maffitt said the community still gets surprised from time to time. Some streets had to be closed because of the tumbleweed turmoil.
“We often handle and oversee the disposal of multiple tons of tumbleweeds. You don’t quite understand how much that is until you are in the process of cleaning it up,” Maffit said.
Resident Alexis Erekson is a newcomer to the area, only moving in last week, but never imagined her new house would be covered in tumbleweeds.
“No need to landscape, we are going for that desert look,” said Erekson jokingly.
At first, Erekson tried to throw the tumbleweeds out, but that lasted about five minutes. After that, she resorted to something a little more combustible by lighting them on fire.
The city suggests either getting a burn permit or get a voucher to the local landfill to dispose of the nuisance, but there is a third option.
“One of the things that our residents have often done is they will put the tumbleweeds on Etsy and sell them as an interior design item, and folks have found some success there,” explained Maffit.
Whether it's selling, burning, or dumping, it’s a clean-up that is unusual to say the least.
“It's something different,” Erekson said. “It's it’s own brand of special and sharp.”
