Road crews battle back ice and snow, hope mild winter weather continues

The storm that hit Vernon County on Monday, Jan. 26, caused a lot of problems for motorists, but road crews for the city of Nevada, Vernon County and MoDOT have done their job and most of the roads are once again safe to travel. It has been a fairly mild winter and the supply of winter road treatment materials is in good shape for all three organizations.

The city of Nevada has six snowplows, two with material spinners, and two road graders that can all be used for snow removal. During this last storm, city workers used just four of the trucks to get the job done. "We try to use the plows instead of the road graders," said Joe Charles, Public Works director for the City of Nevada. They get the job done much quicker, according to Charles.

The city uses a combination of salt, sand and chat to treat the roads along with plowing them. Charles said, "we didn't use an awful lot, only about five percent" of the supply on hand was used." The city stocked up a little on salt this year, but has barely started using it, and it tries to keep one-third of their supply in reserve. "We got off pretty easy this time," said Charles who doesn't foresee any shortage of treatment materials for this winter.

Vernon County keeps a much smaller supply of materials on hand, because what they do is make sure the roads around the courthouse, sheriff's office and Vernon County Emergency Management building are clear, according to Steve Lewis at the Vernon County Highway Barn. Lewis said that some of the townships do a little spreading or grading on their own, but for the most part, the rural roads don't get much attention. The county's supply of materials should also last the winter with no difficulty.

MoDOT uses the same three materials, and the supply is "in good shape," according to Kendall Gire, Regional Maintenance Supervisor for MoDOT's district 7.

During a storm, Gire's crew will push nine trucks, all with plows and computerized spinners, in 12-hour shifts to "put down 200 pounds per lane mile," over 344 miles of state maintained roads in Vernon County.

"We've got a really good crew here; they're really good at what we do," said Gire. During this last storm, they spread 350 tons of salt.

That is a pile in the corner compared to the 4,000 tons in the storage dome at the MoDOT facility on the north edge of town. The amount and availability of salt is not the problem for MoDOT. They have a supply under contract, but in keeping with the rest of the economy the price of their materials continues to rise.

As a result of that, methods of making more effective use of present materials have been tried. Other districts in the state have been having good success with a new material. Gire and his crew are poised to begin using beet juice, "a byproduct," as a supplement to their existing materials.

According to Gire, it takes salt a while to begin dissolving and doing the work of melting what is on the road. The beet juice will be mixed with the materials in the bin or mixed with brine and sprayed on prior to application, so the salt will actually be starting to melt as it hits the pavement, the idea is to get the material they already use " to work faster, cheaper."

Three test plots will be applied in Vernon County as early as the next storm to see how effective the new process will be.

Hopefully, it will reduce the amount of time drivers have to spend in their trucks. That equates to saving money because of fewer overtime hours, less fuel consumed, fewer breakdowns and less material per storm.

Gire said, "Every day we don't have to work snow we're saving taxpayer dollars."

Needless to say, MoDOT's material will last through the winter and may be cheaper than anticipated, There is a bright spot in all of this storm talk; in his 24 years with MoDOT, Gire said he's never pushed snow past March 15.

"We're only six weeks away," he said.