City prepared with ‘full barn of salt’

ThisWeek CW 11/2/2011

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2011/11/02/city-prepared-with-full-barn-of-salt.html

Canal Winchester officials feel confident they are prepared to keep streets clear and safe for residents this winter.

“We’re in good shape for winter. We know it’s coming, so there’s no surprises and we’ve got a full barn of salt to be ready,” public service  director Matt Peoples said. “Even though we’re going through tough economic times, we’re keeping the same policy we’ve always had for snow and ice removal. We’ll get everything cleared this winter, every street and every cul-de-sac. “

According to Peoples, the cost of salt has decreased a bit from $63.07 a ton for 2011 down to $62.56 a ton for 2012.

In 2008, Canal Winchester switched from its previous community consortium contract after a sharp increase in the salt fees. The city now participates in the Ohio Department of Transportation statewide contract.

“We use roughly 500 tons of salt a season,” he said. “Right now, we have about 400 tons in the barn and we have the ability to buy a little over 300 tons, as needed, for a total of 700 tons.

“We are partnered with ODOT and being a part of their bid, which gets added to everyone else’s total buys, is a lot more economical to do. This is our third year with ODOT and we’ve had much more stable prices.”

Peoples said brine is purchased at 13 cents per ton and is stored at the Franklin County Engineer’s Office facility in Groveport. All of Canal Winchester’s trucks are being prepared for winter as is a new multipurpose truck the city purchased this year, which is currently in use for leaf collection.

“We don’t have the brine tanks on the trucks; we’ll do that mid-November,” Peoples said. “Our new truck has a stainless steal truck bed and salt spreader, which helps fight the corrosion.

“We believe in making our equipment last as long as possible and be as useful as possible. It’s second nature to us, so we’ve got a guy in the shop fixing everything up,” he added. “Our trucks are modular, so it only takes a few bolts to go from leaf collection to snow removal.”

Property owners in the city are required to keep sidewalks on their land clear. Peoples said it is important that businesses with bike paths running adjacent to their properties don’t become dumping areas for parking lot snow.

“We need to make sure that those bike paths stay open because people still use those for access and if there’s a giant mound of snow, it makes it very difficult,” he said. “We also ask that residents and business owners have some patience with us when we plow the street and it plows snow back into their already-shoveled drive. That isn’t our intention — we just need to keep the roads open, so we apologize for that ahead of time and we appreciate your understanding.”