(Photo: Courtesy of the City of Moncton)
The mountains of snow in the City of Moncton are slowly getting smaller.
Have you ever wondered where those dump trucks full of snow are going? They’re loaded up each day, and the snow is taken to a snow dump.
Manager of Strategic Communications Austin Henderson says there are several in Moncton, “We have three throughout the City. Berry Mills, one near the new Causeway and one near the Caledonia Industrial Park. It allows us to ensure snow is not impeding traffic and not impeding sidewalks. So the dump trucks full of snow go there and they emptied. We have a tractor and blower that blows the snow back to make room for more. So really, what they are doing is making massive, massive snow mountains to be able to store all of the snow from everywhere else in the city, from our streets and out sidewalks.”
Henderson says the snow gradually melts off once the warmer weather arrives, “In 2011, we had a very heavy snow winter, and if residents don’t remember that, they probably remember 2015, which was also a lot of snow. After those two significant winter weather years, we made infrastructure investments to our snow dump facilities, and we built a new one as well, to make sure we had a place for the snow to go. It’s part of those investments and snow storage facilities, it allows the snow to just melt when the warm weather comes around.”
He adds, “The reason we have different ones is because they are located in different parts of the city, so trucks don’t have to go across the whole city to drop off a load of snow. Also because in the older parts of the City, especially in the downtown where the streets are very narrow, we can’t actually clear the sidewalks until we clear the snow.”
He says snow dumps aren’t unique to Moncton. Most East Coast municipalities have one or something similar, because of harsh, snowy winters.
The work is continuing to clear the snow front the streets and sidewalks in Moncton, “Crews continue to respond to the storms in recent weeks. It isn’t just one storm that has caused the delays, it is because there have been significant storms one after another that have caused a very high accumulation of snow. Because of that, our crews need to complete load and haul operations to get the snow to the snow storage facilities in order to even be able to open sidewalks. There is nowhere for the snow from the sidewalks or the street edges to go. While it can be a little bit frustrating, we do appreciate the public’s patience,” Henderson says.
(Photo: Courtesy of City of Moncton)
