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End of season in sight for plow crews in Canton, Potsdam and elsewhere in St. Lawrence County

Posted 3/13/11

By CRAIG FREILICH After weeks of nearly continuous effort, a good-sized March storm, and lots of overtime, plow crews and their bosses in Canton and Potsdam are looking toward the end of a snow …

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End of season in sight for plow crews in Canton, Potsdam and elsewhere in St. Lawrence County

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

After weeks of nearly continuous effort, a good-sized March storm, and lots of overtime, plow crews and their bosses in Canton and Potsdam are looking toward the end of a snow season more difficult than last winter.

The season has been more challenging than 2009-10, but overall it was fairly typical of most winters, according to most area highway superintendents.

And while most of them don’t think they have yet seen the worst of rising fuel prices, even with contracts meant to contain costs, they have been paying more than $3 a gallon, and it’s going up.

Town of Potsdam Highway Superintendent John Keleher says his department’s overtime requirements have amounted to about 200 more hours through February last year, but his sand usage through February is probably about the same as last year, around 5,800 cubic yards, and it’s been “a normal winter.

“We worked straight early January through February, a couple of months of every day” moving snow and ice,” Keleher said. When they weren’t plowing the roads, his crews “moved snow from around mailboxes, driveways, intersections.”

So far, runoff hasn’t caused any major problems for Keleher. His department has used a steamer truck to clear frozen culverts to prevent overflow and damage to roads. With a steam genny mounted in the bed and an 80-foot hose, “they blow a hole right through them,” Keleher said. They have cleared about 15 culverts this winter, and have helped out the village, which does not have a steamer.

Terry Billings, Town of Canton Highway Superintendent, says his department has been “well within budget” for the season, while requiring “about 50 or 60 hours of overtime a week for the whole month” of February. He has also used up about 250 tons of salt, mixed with sand. “That doesn’t sound like much, but for 100 miles of road, that’s considerable.”

“Last winter was not as bad,” said Village of Potsdam Public Works Superintendent Bruce Henderson. This winter is “comparable to 2008-09, just about an average winter,” putting his winter plowing budget “right about where it’s supposed to be.”

Clearing snow has required “about 400 hours of overtime,” through last month, he said.

There were a few 10- or 12-hour days, Henderson said, “but we cover ourselves with three shifts and that cuts down on overtime.”

The public works crews in Potsdam work on three shifts from late November to early April, Henderson said, to make sure they’re covered at all times. When they’re not clearing snow from streets or parking lots or from around fire hydrants, they are keeping up with vehicle and other maintenance.

Village of Canton Superintendent of Public Works Brien Hallahan believes this winter was actually less taxing than normal, at least before this week’s snow. He thinks other people might have the more recent storms uppermost in their minds.

“We got most of our winter in February,” he says, with some memorable challenges. There were “three sessions of significant overtime” to get the work done, all well within budget.

The trucks, plows, loaders and graders in service in Canton and Potsdam have performed fairly well, with no serious unhappy surprises involving big expenditures of money and time.

Potsdam’s Keleher said there have been a few “minor breakdowns – nothing big.”

“Just the normal replacement of a hydraulic hose here and there, replacing cutting edges on the plows, so far – knock on wood,” Potsdam Village’s Henderson said.

Canton’s Billings reports “no major equipment breakdowns.” He credits his preventive maintenance program, where drivers are assigned trucks and they are responsible for minor maintenance like oil and plow blade changes.

“If a man is assigned a truck, he gets to know it,” which will give the full-time maintenance chief the benefit of an informed operator when something major comes along.

“It’s better than if they bounced between trucks. They have an interest,” Billings said.

“Fuel prices have risen. That’s our main concern right now,” Potsdam’s Henderson said.

For the Town of Canton, “fuel prices have actually been fairly stable,” compared to the general market, Billings said. He was paying $3.17 a gallon for diesel at the beginning of February, and $3.35 a gallon at the beginning of March. He used 2,372 gallons in February for a total of $7,891.36.

While many departments contract with the state for fuel procurement, the Town of Canton has an independent contract with a Massena supplier. With either kind of contract, prices are more or less set in advance, but there are provisions for escalating prices in a volatile market such as the one we are in now.

If there are no more big snows and the temperatures rise, potholes are the next project.

“The state has been trying to do Main Street,” said Hallahan in Canton, but he and others are concerned that the cold patch that is applied one day would just get plowed out the next.

Or it can just pop out, Potsdam’s Henderson said, if the patch gets water under it and it freezes.

Henderson says some of the roads in Potsdam that have had the worst pothole problems in the past have been paved in the last couple of years, and the problems are greatly diminished.

Repair crews might try to tackle some of the bigger potholes before long, but most of that work will await the opening of local asphalt plants in April, when hot patch, a much sturdier preparation, can be obtained.