The Greene County School District has a new addition that will help save a department on hours of maintenance.

The School Board approved at their July 17th meeting a Turf Tank 2, which is an automatic line painter. Superintendent Brett Abbotts says the 100 pound machine can automatically paint the white lines for athletic fields, such as for football, soccer, track, along with shot put and discus; as well as baseball and softball. He describes the reason for the purchase is for time savings for the grounds and facilities department. 

Abbotts explains that it takes about 10-15 hours per person for four people to initially paint the football field and then a few hours repainting it during the season. He points out the Turf Tank 2 can paint the same field in about 3.5 hours and only uses one-quarter of the paint that is used when it is done manually. Abbotts also sees this not only as an efficiency tool, but there are other plans for it as well.

“Our local youth (Greene County Youth Athletic Association) does use our painting machine, so this would be an opportunity for them to use that. We can use it as an educational component too, we’ll see how that goes. The demonstration of it when we had it was pretty cool. So I’m excited for us to have it and for outdoor guys to get some time back.”     

Abbotts notes the equipment uses GIS and can be programmed by a smart device. There is an ongoing fee of $5,000 for maintenance, additional paint in subsequent years and other parts as needed.