There’s been less salt, less fuel, and less overtime for plow drivers.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — We may feel a bit weary with the snow and cold temperatures this week, but remember, we have also seen the sunshine and 60s with a relatively mild winter.
That is especially the case for the road-plowing crews. So despite Friday morning’s burst of snow, 2 On Your Side decided to check on some of the usage and costs for Erie County and the City of Buffalo.
Yes, there were those back to back significant snowfalls in mid January. But for the most part with December, February, and March, the plows and salting crews have not been needed all that much.
So with less accumulation, perhaps less dollars spent for Erie County? Erie County Department of Public Works Commissioner William Geary told us, “If I had to estimate with all the overtime, fringe, some of the repair items, we’re definitely over a million dollars in savings this year.”
Actually, it’s a complicated process to actually bid in May for Erie county’s road salt purchase of nearly 163,000 tons, which is actually a joint agreement also covering all the cities, towns, villages, the NFTA, Erie Community College, and even some school districts.
We asked leaders to break the savings down a bit more this year with less plowing and salting runs on the roads.
“We saved about 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel,” Geary said. “So with the trucks not being out there, there’s the secondary cost of fuel, which is out second-most expensive item in our budget, and with that we saved roughly about $82,000.”
Also, it means less wear and tear on the trucks for Erie County.
As for the City of Buffalo, DPW commissioner Nathan Marton says his department keeps a large supply of salt near Perry Street off the 190.
“There’s a minimum amount of salt that we need to buy,” he said. “Any municipality has a purchase agreement, for the most part, where you have to buy a minimum amount. We’re going to have probably about a 75 percent usage.”
Marton added: “There will be a net savings to us from a salt perspective, and then equipment, so less fuel, less trucks driving around. But we still have trucks out all the time, so that’s a little bit of a savings.”
The city will eventually have to move this big pile of salt as demolition of the Perry projects begins later this year. And with those big salt purchase contracts, storage of the salt is also a factor.
Marton said it is so much per ton if the supplier has to store it for a municipal customer, which didn’t need it all.
“You can pay the salt supplier to store it or you can take it on. We have the ability to store over at our salt pile,” Marton said.
Erie County built bigger salt storage barns to triple its salt storage capacity. That road salt supply comes from the American Rock Salt Company at the Groveland Mine in Livingston County, which is along Route 390 South of Rochester.
Geary said it is a New York State law that all the road salt used must be produced in the United States.