3.6. SR 02-03-1997 - Laserfiche WebLink

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SNOW.from B1 Methods of snow removal as different as sand and salt "Every city has the same goal ~ tO clear the streets of snow. But..not every city does it the s.ame* way.' S~irid vs. salt '-~though sand is considerably ctih.a'per than salt -- the Minne- sot.a..:Department of Transporta- tio~'pay~ between $2 and $2.50 fora-ton of sand and $28 per ton of.~alt -- many communities pre- fef_~/alt. Others swear by sand. And,some use calcium chloride, but ~aringlv at $200 per ton. )Bwokl3;n'Park, fearing clogged stor~a sewer pipes, uses an aver- ag.e'~0, f 3,500 tons of salt per year but very little sand. :~hgan, by contrast, uses be- mrgen 3,000 and 5,000 tons of sar/deach year, but only 1,200 to 1,6~0 tons 6f salt. :.B~cause salad must be swept aWf't' after the snow melts, salt may*be more cost effective, said G~on Surges, Brooklyn Park's stti~el superintendent. ::But communities on heavy salt di~t~ may pay in other ways this ye~.r~ Due to the unusually high ar~ount of snow, many commu- nit~es have surpassed their sea- so'txal allotment of salt. .-*Through the first week of lan- ua~rT]; Brooklyn Park already had usa'at 3,000 tons of salt, and Sti/'gbs anticipated that he would be fGrced to order more. :~.T. he problem is waiting for it?..he said. "There's salt to be hifl):but you have to hope it ar- rives~ before we get hit with an- othi~r big storm." ";Kt least one community adds sand to its salt mix for cosmetic reasons. · ~The salt does the work," said Phi! .Hals, Elk River streets and par~ superintendent. 'But if the drivers can't see the brown color on the street, they're not satis- fied. They need some visual as- surance that something's down there." TV or not TV Some communities, like Edina, rely primarily on cable TV reports and radar to predict the weather. .But 19 metro communities, in- ciO'ding Minneapolis, pay $150 pe£month to a small local service called Weather Watch, which uses~.computer or fax to send de- talle.d reports and often alerts creW,vs about storms in the middle of-the night through pagers and voice-mall. 'Amy Rolando, a former WCCO-TV meteorologist and founder of Weather Watch, said, "By 'offering a very detailed breakdown of the day, in three- hour segments, the users know what ldnds of materials to use." The Minnesota Department of Transportation, responsible for plowing state and interstate high- ways, uses the Burnsville-based Kavouras Inc. weather service, which issues forecasts for flights worldwide and does a tailored forecast for the metro area. The department also has its OWn radar and its own weather information service and monitors five local TV channel~. ';Weather is not an exact sci- ence, ~ said Norm Ashfeld, the de- partment's highway superinten- dent for the metro area. "We can use all the help we can get. ~ Some communities get extra help by supplementing crews and machinery through contracts Getting rid of snow Here is a list of some of the resources cities in the metropolitan area.. useo ~ 1996 for snow removal ~ Number of Budget Number ;i snow-removal fm snow To~s of To~s of of miles ; CRy vehicles removal salt sand plowed* :; Chaska 12 $54,000 350 1,800 76 ' Hastings 11 $230.000 350 3,000 78 Brooklyn 29 $687~235 6,000 400 to 214 Park 500 Mpls. 90 $6.4 million 20DO0 to 18,000 to 1DO0 22.OOO 2O,000 Deephaven 6 $20.000 120 480 50 St. Paul 75 $4.,5 million 21,000 35,000 800 Savage 14 . $100,690 550 800 75 Forest Lak, e 6 $25,000 75 700-800 30 "Ooesn'[ include cul.de-sacs and public lots. with private companies. Minnetonka uses contractors to plow out four of its fire sta- tions. Elk River uses privately owned plows for cul-de-sacs, while Chaska hires outsiders to plow rural areas. Other communities prefer to avoid contractors. "With contractors, the service level decreased .... "said Brook- lyn Park's Surges. "They don't~ know the area the way our people do ~ and the public is not shy about letting us know it." Meltdown As snow levels rise and blood pressures reach boiling points, a blizzard of desperate and highly creative telephone calls to com- munity snow-removal umts often results. For example: An Elk River woman asked that her street be plowed so she could get to the grocery store because "her dog was tired of eating scrambled eggs," Hals recalled. Surges said: "They tell us, 'You've got to plow my street first because I'm handicapped, I'm sick, I've got to get to the hospi- Star Tril~ne gra¢,hic tal, I'm late.' One person called to complain that we knocked down a mailbox and then called hack an hour later to complain that we didn't plow close enough to the mailbox." Some complainers should save their frostt' 1 hreath; they're call- ing the wroag offices. Municipal, county and state plowing units have responsibility for different roadways in many communities.. Struve, Eagan's streets opera- tions manager, said that commu- nities dealing with parked cars have difficulty doing efficient jobs, "The perception is that there's a fertile crescent in the western and southern suburbs," Struve said. "It's not the [snow-removal] budgets that are so different. It's the number of two- and three-car garages, which mean very litt. le on-street parkJng. ' But officials say no matter what they do, resider ts are more likely to complain than compliment. "Everyone wants to be the first to be shoveled out," Surges said. "There are 62,000 people living in Brooklyn Park, and each one gets more snow than anybody else."