February 7, 2008

County exceeds snow removal budget

The Adams County Public Works Department has logged more than 550 hours of overtime since the start of the year trying to keep up with the constant barrage of snow, Director Todd O’Brien told the county commissioners on Monday.

Normally, 900 to 1,000 hours of overtime are budgeted for the entire year for the county’s public works department.

“We’re over 500 hours, closer to 550, at the end of January. I’ve added probably 100 to 150 hours in the last four days and we’re not done yet,” he said. “My guess is, I’m going to exceed my overtime budget this year… but right now we’re not hitting the panic button.”

O’Brien was referring to adjusting planned summer projects that may include sealcoat, crackseal, prelevel, hydroseeding and weed spraying, according to how much is spent in winter overtime.

The Ritzville district was hit hardest, with crews spending 256 hours through Jan. 31 pushing snow. The Lind district spent about 129 hours in overtime work and Othello logged 64 hours of overtime.

For the month of January, public works spent $36,000 in overtime labor, including the engineering department, O’Brien said.

Crews have plowed 13,686 miles of road in Ritzville, 10,400 miles in Lind and 9,400 in Othello in January.

Last Saturday, all but two graders in Othello were in the Ritzville district for six to eight hours to get ahead of the snow. O’Brien said that in a full call-out, the county can have 30 to 31 pieces of equipment on the ground to deal with snow.

“This is the first time we’ve worked on Saturday to be better prepared for what was coming,” O’Brien said.

Snow removal north of Interstate 90 and the Carico Hills consumed a lot of man-hours, and crews spent two days on Rosenoff Road with a front loader and flagger to clear out the first four miles outside of Ritzville.

Drifting snow caused havoc on Sunday night, forcing crews to fall back to concentrating on primary routes followed by bus routes.

“The main issue in the last week is blowing snow, more than anything else,” O’Brien explained. “The minute we get it out of there we can’t keep it out.”

County road crews pushed snow for seven days straight from Jan. 27 through Feb. 2.

“We are over on snow removal of what we anticipated by a long shot,” O’Brien noted. The county budgeted $240,000 for work in January and actually spent $267,000.

“But it’s not never-ending. It will end. It will warm up,” O’Brien continued. “Frankly, the runoff concerns me a little more than the snow.”

According to the forecast, temperatures are supposed to get above freezing by the weekend. With all the snow and ice blanketing the county, damage caused by runoff is possible.

O’Brien hopes that if it does warm up, night temperatures drop below freezing to slow the water down.