“It’s been pretty mild since I got here,” said Pittsburg Street Supervisor Lonnie Wells, “2011 was the last big storm, and that’s OK with me.” As Wells spoke Tuesday, the City’s trucks were crisscrossing Pittsburg using plows and a mixture of sand and salt to clear the streets of stubborn packed snow. Although the weekend’s snow was not deep, the extreme cold slowed melting and many streets were still slippery. Wells said that once snow is compacted by traffic and temperatures are as low as they have been recently, it becomes almost like ice. “You can’t plow that stuff off,” Wells said. The extreme cold creates specific problems of its own, Wells said. “Our rock salt is only effective once it gets to about 20 degrees,” he said. The sand ($18 a ton) is mixed with the salt ($125 a ton) at a ratio of four to one before it is applied. Wells said the crews try to prepare for winter weather by pretreating streets with a brine solution at least once a week. Wells said he has a crew of seven. His department has five 10-wheeler trucks, two 1-ton trucks and a couple of pickups on which small plows are mounted. Perhaps the most effective tool in the battle against the snow and ice, the Sun, was helping out, as well.
Source: Morning Sun
