Last year, six snow storms by now; this year three

January 27, 2012
by Christine Yeres

By this time last year, says Commissioner Anthony Vaccaro, New Castle had weathered six snowstorms totaling 40 inches of snow on 120 miles of road (= 240 lane miles).  So far this year the town has seen only three events requiring salting or plowing:  the out-of-season October 26 snowstorm that wreaked havoc on trees and powerlines, a freezing rain on January 16 and the one-day-winter-wonderland last Saturday.

One year ago, the 1,650 tons of salt plus crew members working for 98 hours of snow removal for the six six snowfalls had cost around $173,000.  As of today, the town has spent $83,256 for 46 hours of crew work and 666 tons of salt on 17 inches of snow.

The town is divided into 17 zones for plowing purposes.  For full-blown storms, the nine highway department drivers are supplemented by drivers from the town’s recycling, building and water departments.

So far, a mild winter

Crews spent more time (working 19 hours straight) but less salt (120 tons for 12 inches of snowfall, or $6,720) on the October 26 snowstorm than for the January 16 freezing rain, when they worked 11 hours straight and used 252 tons of salt.  Vaccaro attributes this to the fact that temperatures before the October storm were very mild, so there was no frost in the ground; consequently, crews were able to rely on plowing to do most of the clearing, with salting done only at the very end.

Although no snow fell on January 16—and temperatures had begun to rise, resulting rain-only—freezing temperatures in the days before the rain of January 16 required all-out salting on a continuous basis, Vaccaro explained, “to ‘burn’ the ice down to the pavement.” 

The storm one week ago, on January 21, was the first for which crews laid down a pre-application of brine.  Before the snow comes, workers go out along the roadways in trucks with large plastic tanks distributing liquid brine from five nozzles behind.  (These are the five parallel whitish tracks that appear on road surfaces as the brine dries.) 

Once the snow hits, the brine works on the snow or ice from below as plowing and salting goes on above.  “The brine is very effective,” Vaccaro explained, “in preventing ice from bonding to surfaces, and also buys us some time before plows or salting is required.” The risk, though, he added, is that “with rain and freezing rain (depending on road temperatures) the brine treatment can easily wash away.”

On January 21, crews began at 3:00 a.m. Saturday and worked through to 7:00 p.m. that night.  At around 6:00 p.m. Vaccaro learned that there had been a water main break at the intersection of Harscrabble and Tanglewild, which workers carried through overnight to fix. 

Brine had been applied to roadways the day and night before the January 21 storm and—for the first time—workers applied brine to the town-owned sections of sidewalk, some at the train station, others in the downtown.  The sidewalks were brined on foot, by a worker with a back-pack container of the solution and a spray wand. 

According to Vaccaro, salt is currently about $12 cheaper per ton than last year—$53 per ton vs. $65 per ton.  He has plenty of salt now in his stores.