Worcester Spent Over $50,000 To Salt Streets During Tuesday’s Storm

Friday, December 12, 2014

Patrick Sargent, GoLocal Worcester Contributor

After Tuesday’s freezing rain storm resulted in nearly 200 accidents in the city, many residents in Worcester were asking the question of why the city’s streets weren't’t pre-treated, why there weren't’t trucks out earlier, and how come the side streets took so long to get treated. Many argued that the city was trying to save money. For Tuesday's storm, it cost the city more than $50,000 to treat the streets.

According to the DPW, the average cost to send all 35 DPW trucks out to salt and sand the streets per hour is $2,170. At a minimum of twelve hours on Tuesday, the city spent more than $26,000 on truck driver wages.

Paul Moosey, the DPW Commissioner, said the city uses roughly 10,000 tons of salt per year. The city has 500 streets that need to be salted during winter storms. This averages out to be 20 tons of salt per mile per year. The city’s trucks can carry up to 50,000 pounds, or 25 tons of salt. However, some trucks can only carry up to 30,000 pounds or less.

½ ton of salt covers one mile of road. On Tuesday, the city used 250 tons of salt. At an average cost of $70 per ton of salt, the city spent $17,500 to salt it’s streets one time.

As reported by GoLocal Worcester on Thursday, City Manager Ed Augustus released a statement saying “Because the weather did not warm up as quickly as forecasted, the main streets re-froze and trucks had to go back and treat them a second time, as the rain had washed away much of the initial salt.”

Keeping that in mind, even if the city only re-salted 100 streets, it will still cost an additional $7,000. For Tuesday’s storm, between the cost of wages and the cost of salting the streets, the city spent over $50,000.

What was Tuesday’s Protocol?

Moosey said, “Depending on the temperature, we may even pre-treat before the storm starts, which we frequently do. You can’t pre-treat for freezing rain.”

“The protocol changes depending on what the forecast is, what the time of day is, whether or not it’s a weekend, all those things are a factor. In a general sense, we will look at the forecast, and when it’s supposed to start snowing, or in the case of Tuesday, freezing rain, we have equipment on stand by for a certain time. We have a forecast that tries to pin down the time, but they’re not always correct. That’s what the decision is based on,” said Moosey.

“During day-time hours, depending on the traffic, we will position sanders in different places in the city. If we anticipate it could be troublesome getting around in the city in the middle of the night, we don’t worry about that when there’s virtually no traffic,” Moosey said.

According to Augustus’ statement, “DPW trucks were called in around 11:30 PM Monday, in anticipation of the forecasted storm. An initial group of 15 trucks went out around 1:00 AM, just as the first rain and ice started falling. The City's total complement of 35 trucks were in use shortly thereafter.”

Moosey said, “The twenty trucks went out within the next ¾ of an hour. As we filled them, they went out. You can’t fill them all at the same time. They brought them in, filled them and then shot them out there.”