(File photo/paNOW Staff)

By Susan McNeil

Snow removal

City ran out of room to pile snow

Mar 29, 2022 | 2:48 PM

This year’s snow season was so bad that the city not only had issues with clearing the snow, they ran out of places to put it.

Public Works director Wes Hicks said that official amount is hard to obtain but staff faced multiple challenges when it came to getting the snow off the streets and then finding places to put it.

“Eventually we started to run out of room to put the windrows. The windrows were getting so large that some streets were down to one lane,” Hicks told council on Monday.

Earlier in the winter a freeze and thaw cycle meant that the bottom layer on the street was ice, which then had multiple snowfalls added on top.

As the piles on the sides of the streets accumulated, plows had challenges getting their buckets all the way to the pavement level to get the ice.

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Snow that was hauled to city dump sites also piled up and new places had to be found.

“Our snow dumps are full. We ended up making a new one off Marquis and 15^th,” said Mayor Greg Dionne.

That dump also filled up though and as soon as the ground started to soften this spring, the trucks broke through and could no longer access the site.

This year’s snow budget was $1,264,600, about $60,000 more than last year but there has been a lot more snow.

The money from the snow tax is supposed to fund the snow management reserve, but that fund has had a deficit every year since 2018.

Because the recent snow management base tax — it was changed this budget year to a special tax — also included an infrastructure designation, some of the money was diverted to the infrastructure reserve.

Some was also diverted to the general fund to balance the budget.

Council decided on Monday that they would review the snow special tax annually to see if the amount collected – about $1.3 million – is appropriate for the actual cost of doing the job.

Virtually all properties pay $60 in snow removal tax which, until this year, also included an infrastructure component that has been removed.

In an initial report to council, staff outlined that the amount has grown from actual costs of as low as $642,093 in 2016. The needed amount for 2021 was $1.2 million and $1.5 million the year before.

In previous years, anywhere from $250,000 to over $600,000 was transferred to the infrastructure reserve but the amount varied depending on budgetary needs.

Councillors expressed concern that the dollars should be as transparent as possible and residents are aware that costs will continue to rise even if the service level remains the same.

“This year was an exceptional snowfall year, we know that, but I know there’s some concerns from many residents,” said councillor Blake Edwards.

In addition to the report presented to council at Monday’s meeting, Public Works has started preparing a second one that will look forward.

Councillors requested that the report include the cost of a higher level of service, such as clearing to pavement level every time.

“What would it cost to go down to the pavement on all the streets? Another $30 per year? Does it mean more equipment, more manpower, more overtime?” Hicks said. “We are working on a report to respond to that. It’s going to be an in-depth report.”

The report is expected to include the cost of snow removal every year and an estimate of improving the service each year.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertNOW