Evening star., 1941-08-24
Keeping D. C. Streets Clean
Is No Snap, Xanten Finds
Defense Program
Adds More Work,
Supervisor Says
By CAMBRIDGE CRIsT.

If you've ever driven to Boston
you may have some idea of the
miles of streets and alleys that the
District has to clean.
Roughly, the distance to Boston
and back is 925 miles. The mileage
of streets and alleys in Washington
is about LOO.
Collecting everything from old
letters to dead animals and garbage
along these miles of roadways of
the District is the job of the
City Refuse Division and the job of
supervising that work is in the
hands of William A. Xanten.
It's a JOB that has to be done
winter and summer, spring and
fall, in all kinds of weather. Every
four or five days the collectors get
enough trash to fill the Washington
Monument, some $4,000 cubic yards.
And with the inflow of thousands
of new Government workers to de-
fense agencies the collection job is
getting harder and harder.
when the population increases
our job increases" Mr.. Xanten
commented in an interview.
Mr.. Xanten, who is chairman OF
the Street Cleaning Committee Of
the American Public Works Asso-
citation, said he thought the refuse
division work "is one of the biggest
headaches in any municipal job"
But Mr.. Xanten, who has been with
the division for Is years, appears
to enjoy the headache"
Il am very interested in the work, !"
he declared, land the morale of the
division is fine"
The City of Washington, he
pointed out, has a number of spe-
cial problems. There is, for in
stance, the problem Of trying to
clean or plow the snow off streets
with cars parked at the curb for
overnight. And then the District
with its row upon row of trees
"has the biggest leaf problem in
the country" even bigger than New
York City. Further, the city has a
number of wide streets and alleys
which make the task of cleaning
and plowing more difficult.
In addition to the collection OF
trash and garbage there is the sea-
sonal problem of rounding up
small forest of Christmas trees,
which run between $4,000 and 10000
a year. And on top of that there
is the annual task of picking up
some $1,000 dead animals.
Outside of the Office employees the
division is stated with 1,100 work.
ers. OF course, men are added dur
ing a snowstorm. For snow-removal
work the Refuse Division receives
help from the Highway Depart
met and the Sewer Division, but
is designated to supervise the work.
Mr.. Xanten's Office, a large, mod
ern room on the second floor of the
new Municipal Center Building,
looks something like an Army gen.
eral staff room, with large maps on
the wall, dotted with red, white and
blue pins. On one map the pins are
used to indicate the location of waste
paper boxes. Another map has pins
to show the location of incinerators,
repair shop and dumps. A third
map shows the areas for snow re-
moval, the downtown sections taken
by the Refuse Division, the outlying
sections of Northeast and North
west Washington handled by the
highway Department and the Ana
costa area cleaned of snow by the
Sewer Division
According to the maps, the Refuse
Division has ills miles of roadways
to handle in snowstorms, the High
way Department 1924 miles and the
Sewer Division SAT miles, making q
total of 308.7 miles.
But that doesn't give complete
picture of the work to be done by
any means. On a wide highway like
Pennsylvania avenue, where several
plows have to 60 alongside Of each