By CRAIG FREILICH

Public works and highway department superintendents in Canton, Potsdam and Norwood say they are ready for the snow to come and have been since October.

“We’ve been ready for a while. We just haven’t had any snow yet,” said Town of Potsdam Highway Superintendent John Keleher.

“We start getting ready in the first part of October,” he said. “You have to be ready to go in October.”

His colleagues agree it would be foolish to wait even if a mild winter is predicted.

“Every year you know we’re going to get some, just not how much, or when,” but they have to be ready for the worst, Village of Canton Superintendent Brien Hallahan said.

It’s been easy so far, compared with last year.

Town of Canton Highway Superintendent Terry Billings pulled out his diary and noted that on Dec. 1 this year, his trucks did a single pass of sand and salt on all roads due to rain and a temperature of 22 degrees at 5 a.m. By 2:30 p.m., he said the temperature had risen into the 30s.

“It was a good thing to run the trucks” for the first time this year in relatively easy conditions, “and make sure everything’s running,” he said.

Compare that with some of his diary entries from last year: Nov. 17, snowy, 32 degrees; sanded blacktops both ways. Nov. 18, 23 degrees, sanded everything twice. Nov. 19, called crew out at 4 a.m., plowed and sanded. Nov. 20, scraped and sanded at 6 and again at 10:30. Dec. 2, clear and cold, nine degrees at 5 a.m., expecting precipitation. Dec. 3, 2:30, snow and freezing rain.

Maintenance and Preparation

While many departments start their preparations in September and October, Potsdam’s Keleher says his department does maintenance a little differently than other departments. He likes to get most of the plow and truck maintenance done in the spring.

“We go through the trucks, power wash them and service the plows and sanders. Then all we need to do in the fall is double-check them.

“Basically everything’s loosened up in the spring. In the spring it’s fresh in our minds what’s wrong with them. If they sit outside, the chains get all stiffened up,” he said.

Potsdam Town’s fiscal year runs January to December, and he can get the maintenance done in the same budget cycle as the plowing season, before budget-building for the next year, which in most other North Country municipalities begins in the spring.

Most of the departments have all their salt and sand on hand for the season.

Salt and Sand

The price of salt is up by more than two dollars a ton this year through the contract the county negotiates each year.

This year it cost $67 a ton, delivered from the Port of Ogdensburg. Last year it was $64.60 a ton. Canton’s Billings notes it was $38.67 a ton for the winter of 2008-09.

Billings has also noted that “the big break we’re getting is on the price of fuel,” as fuel prices remain low across the country.

Keleher says that by early September they had 6,800 yards of sand-and-salt mix ready, including 600 tons of salt from their annual 1,200 ton allotment. Right now there are 200 more tons in the salt shed, and when they need more delivered, they call Morton Salt in Chicago and they arrange for more to be delivered from the stockpile in Ogdensburg.

Village of Potsdam Superintendent Bruce Henderson says three main trucks “saddled up” and ready to go. They have mixed piles of salt and sand, and “the barn is full of salt.” He confirms that the price of road salt is up again this year.

In Norwood, Village Superintendent of Public Works Dan McGregor says his crew has put all the sanders and plows on two main dump trucks and a smaller dump truck, and can use a pickup truck with a plow for smaller jobs. They also run a sidewalk plow.

“We make sure everything works, we paint things up. We’ve changed some fittings” as part of the usual equipment maintenance.

There are 22 lane miles in the village they take care of, McGregor said.

Even with the snow and ice last year, “we didn’t go through any more sand than we usually do.” He said they typically order 400 tons of salt for a winter.

Village of Canton Superintendent Brien Hallahan says his crews will have four or five trucks for plowing and sanding duty.

“The sand and salt pile is up. We’re just waiting for snow we hope never comes.”

They will handle 15 ½ miles of village roads plus seven lane miles of state roadway.

In the Village of Potsdam, Henderson says there are 11 members of the department who are available for snow removal duties. The department is going on shift work this month to be sure that someone is available overnight for clearing snow and spreading salt and sand. Overnight workers are also available for maintaining trucks and for clearing snow from village parking lots.

In the Town of Potsdam, Keleher says they run seven trucks in total for plowing and sanding the 122 “centerline” miles of roads – 244 lane miles – in the town plus other sections such as the Unionville water and sewer plant and the Pine Street Arena parking lot. They don’t plow any state roads.

Freezing surprise

Henderson said last year’s budget for the village department fell short “not so much for snow but for freezing pipes.” With extended deep cold late in the winter, a couple of water mains froze up and ruptured, and required replacement. The biggest jobs were along outer Main Street and on Waverly Street south of Grove Street. Those failures required digging up and replacing about 200 feet of pipe each.

That was time-consuming enough, but with the frost line going seven feet deep – “about the deepest I’ve seen,” Henderson said – close to 90 residential “laterals,” the lines that run from the mains to houses, had to be thawed out.