CAIRO — Grady County Administrator Buddy Johnson said a second monitored trash dump site located at Beck Branch Road likely will be opened in a matter of days.

“Hopefully either at the end of this week or the first of next week,” Johnson said Tuesday.

The site has running water with a portable toilet and cleaning station.

Johnson said work on a third manned dump site, which will be located near the sheriff’s office in Cairo, will begin once the Beck Branch location is opened and likely will be completed in approximately one and a half months.

A manned dump site already exists on 20th Street in Cairo.

The county board of commissioners previously approved an $8,000 purchase of 350 tons of lime rock base and a $15,000 purchase of 575 tons of crushed asphalt to convert the Beck Branch site into a manned location Jan. 22.

Johnson said as manned dump sites are opened, the 35 unmanned sites across the county will be closed slowly.

The county administrator asked the commissioners Tuesday to consider outsourcing trash pickup to a third party as the unmanned sites are closed in order to allow the road department vehicles tasked with garbage duty to return to their intended purposes.

“Either Thomas or Taylor Waste or whoever will come in and do that, and that takes the load off of our equipment that we’re wearing out on trash on roads and I can put them on road detail,” Johnson said. “The sooner we get these manned sites open, the better, I think.”

Johnson said he consulted with Cairo city manager Chris Addleton, who advised him that outsourcing garbage pick up will likely save the county money.

“Outsourcing the pickup will be huge to us, I think,” Johnson said. “I think it will save us piles and piles of money.”

Commissioners voted Jan. 8 to begin closing the unmanned dump sites  and create seven monitored locations to deal with overflowing trash.

The remaining dump sites will be monitored with a guard working from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

Johnson said at the time that he hoped the manned dump sites would solve what he described as “a perfect storm in sanitation,” resulting in numerous messy dumpsites across the county filled beyond capacity in January.

Commissioner June Knight noted that Sheriff Harry Young recently ordered deputies to issue citations for illegal dumping and dumpster diving.

Knight requested that any residents who witness such activities contact 911.