Lack of snow idles NNY snowplows

Richard L. Harra and his public works crew normally would be plowing city of Watertown streets at this time of year.

With such a light winter so far, he and his three-man crew kept busy the last two days tearing down a pair of vacant city homes. And if the unseasonable weather keeps up, they will be able to finish up the jobs by the end of the week, he said.

“I can’t remember the last time it was like this, maybe 10 years,” Mr. Harra said.

So far, a mere 10 inches of the white stuff has fallen this season. Typically, Watertown gets about 120 inches.

City Department of Public Works Superintendent Eugene P. Hayes acknowledged it’s been a light season for snow removal.

So far, crews with DPW, which has budgeted nearly $1.2 million for the year, have used just a meager 300 tons of salt, nowhere close to the 3,200 tons crews typically use, Mr. Hayes said. The department also has barely dipped into its $86,000 overtime budget for snow removal.

But that could change at any time with one large storm hitting the north country, Mr. Hayes said. While there is the potential for big savings in snow-removal expenses, he cautioned not to count on it.

“I’ve been here too long when everybody gets excited about no snow, and something happens,” he said. He said he will not know until springtime if snow expenses will remain down.

His counterparts throughout the north country said their plow crews have been no busier removing snow. They all said that fuel and overtime expenses are down, although none could provide exact figures.

Town of Lowville Highway Superintendent Richard T. Dening said his department thus far has used 39 loads of salt and sand, down from 93 loads at this point last winter. Town plow crews have been out only 10 times, compared with 14 times by mid-December 2010, he said.

“And last year wasn’t a really bad year, either,” Mr. Dening said.

Lowville village crews have used their large snowplows only once, on Jan. 2, although some plowing was done with pickup trucks on several other days, said Superintendent of Public Works Mark D. Tabolt.

This year marks the fifth-lowest overtime total in the last seven years as of early January, he said.

Town of Adams Highway Superintendent Terry Babcock said Adams — an area known for getting hit hard with lake-effect snow — has used 380 tons of salt so far, while typically it already would have used 500 tons. The town uses about 600 tons altogether in an average winter.

Town of Henderson Highway Superintendent Harold J. Nelson said his department so far has logged just a fraction of the overtime hours that were worked last winter. So far, his crews have punched in 30 to 40 overtime hours; last winter, they accumulated 260 hours.

Wade A. Davis, Ogdensburg Bridge and Port Authority executive director, declined to say how much salt the authority has distributed to municipalities at the Port of Ogdensburg this season.

“I don’t mean to be difficult, but this is something we’d prefer to report on later. As you know, we are in competition with the Port of Prescott (Ontario), and I don’t want to reveal specific tonnage amounts to our competitors. Our salt movements are a function of salt companies responding to municipalities’ needs. I would rather defer that question to our January board meeting. We typically ship 120,000 to 180,000 tons of salt per year, and we are currently serving local governments around the region.”

Times staff writers Gordon Block, Steve Virkler and Christopher Robbins contributed to this report.