New York Times takes dig at Boston's lack of municipal Snowzillas
By adamg - 1/28/11 - 9:00 am
The paper of record for the City that Never Plows journeys to New England to take note of our towering snow mountains and snipe:
Some snow-savvy cities, like Minneapolis, have invested in machines called Snow Dragons that can melt 30 tons of snow an hour, filter out pollutants and trash and send the snowmelt down a storm drain. Boston has rebuffed the idea in the past, but [DPW Director Joanne] Massaro said that "any option is on the table" at this point.
Comments
That's nice, but how much do
That's nice, but how much do these things cost, and what is going to happen to them when we have two or three winters in a row with relatively light snow?
There are five Snow Dragons
There are five Snow Dragons in the product line. The most popular offering - SND900 - melts 30 tons of snow each hour, and retails for about $250,000. The going rental rate is about $300/hour. To that, tack on operating costs - two people to run the machine, a front-end loader operator to shovel in the snow, and the fleet of dump trucks to haul it to location. They require cleaning, maintenance, and periodic replacement of burners and other parts. And then there's the fuel - as much as 50 gallons each hour, or another $180/hour.
But 30 tons isn't a whole lot of snow, perhaps ten truckloads. If a city like Boston was going to make the investment, it might spring for the SND5400 - with a 180 ton per hour capacity. The fuel alone can run to $1,300/hour. And if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.
These machines make a great deal of sense for certain users. Airports, for example, which have vast acreage of tarmac, can pass on the price in the form of gate fees, and which use them to avoid the security headaches of having a fleet of outside contractors drive dump trucks in and out of the secure perimeter. Some municipalities - like those in upstate New York, which average 2-3 times our annual snowfall - can turn them into a good investment. And cities in the mid-Atlantic, which are unused to large snowfall, can find them useful when hit by an unusually large storm.
But Boston actually has a perfectly workable contingency plan in place. It has six snow farms, instead of one or two Snow Dragons - and that means shorter distances to haul and dispose of the snow. The equipment it uses, like dump trucks and loaders, can be put to other uses the rest of the year, and in the vast majority of years in which this simply isn't an issue. And Boston, for now, still has an abundance of room in all six of its snow farms.
So perhaps Abby Goodnough has actually run the numbers on this, and figured out that making a huge capital investment in a piece of equipment with very high operating costs, marginal utility, and only periodic usefulness is indeed a 'savvy' move. Or maybe she shouldn't put throwaway lines in her kicker unless she can back them up.
If there is an abundance of
If there is an abundance of room in the snow farms, I'd love for the city to be willing to remove more snow from small side streets. I live on a tiny street off of another tiny street, and I highly doubt a fire truck could fit on our streets or make the turns with each corner piled high with snow. Another decent storm and cars might not fit anymore! I understand snow removal instead of simply snow plowing is expensive, but on small streets it becomes a danger for residents and a liability for the city for snow to take over the street. I make sure my hydrant is dug out, but if a fire truck can't get on my street to use it...
Plus side
You could just shovel some of that ridiculous amount of snow onto the burning building!
(I kid, I kid)
Snow Farms
All our snow is locally grown!
Brown snow is local snow
And local snow is fresh!
SRS-P100
Here's a cost comparison for a competitive product. After factoring in fuel ($3.50/gal) plus depreciation, (they say) it comes in under half of what it costs to truck snow out.
Cool to watch these things work anyway - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmDl_nETs8U.
Um, you understand that the
Um, you understand that the cost comparison was produced by the vendor, right?
The comparison it offers assumes that the snow melting machine is on-site, and that the alternative is trucking the snow some substantial distance to a point where it can be disposed. That's true for, say, a shopping mall operator who needs to clear a parking lot.
But in Boston, the snow is spread out all over the city. There's a need to clear out key intersections, or particularly snow-choked thoroughfares. You're not going to be able to buy one of these things, and move it around block-by-block. Instead, the city would presumably designate a handful of sites, and haul smaller loads of snow from particular locations to these disposal points.
And that's why it doesn't make much sense. To the extent that it can, Boston already does exactly that. Only instead of paying an hourly rate to have a machine melt the snow, it simply leaves it at the collection points so that it will melt on its own. An amazing cost savings! Smart government in action!
That approach only runs into problems when you run out of room to stack the snow and leave it there to wait for spring. Boston isn't close to that point. Even cities like Cambridge and Somerville, which were closer to running out of space, found a much more efficient alternative by borrowing unused private land.
So here's the bottom line on snow melters. If you own a very large plot of land in one location, but don't have a good place on it to store your snow for up to four or five months, they make some sense. But if you own lots of land all over, and need to get rid of widely-dispersed snow, you're better off dumping it somewhere and letting it melt on its own.
well
Not saying you're wrong, but what's the maintenance and operating costs for all the snow removal (trucks, front end loaders, etc) compared to the snow dragon machines? Maybe the city would save money with these.
Okay, you do not get it. The
Okay, you do not get it.
The snow would still need to be moved TO the Snow Dragon machines with trucks, front end loaders, etc. OR the Snow Dragon machines would have to be moved ALL OVER THE CITY, using a truck, and the front end loaders would need to move with the Snow Dragons and then load them with snow.
These things aren't, like, all-in-one machines that drive around on their own and load the snow on their own. They need support vehicles.
Cheaper fuel
These machines use No. 2 fuel or diesel which is lot cheaper than $3.50.
Alta, Utah is a tiny, constricted town that averages over 500" of snow a year (powder!!!), and has a large area where they truck the snow. Bulldozers then spread it out and pack it, and they just keep piling it on top.
You'd have to think that Boston could use a melter, though. Because it's portable, you'd bring it to congested areas where there's no place to put snow and start melting.
Spreading the Cost
Years when we have a great deal of snow just one of the devices could make a difference. 30 tons/ 10 trucks per hour could equal conservatively at 12 hours a day (with two crews) 360 tons or 1,200 truck loads. That's a lot of snow that is melted.
In a period where there are thaws between snows could speed up the process. Then during years such as this year when the snow just builds and builds at least the machine could help ameliorate the overall impact.
During years of minor snowfall rent the machine out to another city. That is what Baltimore did last year: they rented at least one.
A neighbor and I discussed what possible reasons could exist for Boston to not own at least one of the machines - while wondering how to put more snow on top of the piles taller than either of us? Perhaps if Boston police could extend their legal extortion, ah, details to "protecting" the Snow Dragons (from Abominable Snowcreatures and raging Snowmen/women/children) then that would result in the city purchasing one or a few.
Besides that, it just feels wrong
Doesn't anyone else get an icky anti-planet feeling out of the fact that there are people trying to sell a machine whose sole job it is is to melt snow by burning tons of gas and running the snow over the top of the burners?
I mean, I seriously get a creepy Hoggish Greedly/Looten Plunder vibe from the idea that these guys want to sell these things anywhere it snows a bit.
As opposed to all the fuel
As opposed to all the fuel efficient clean emission dump trucks that cart it away now? Like I wrote above, I'd love to see a comparison.
Boston used to have something similar back in the day
but it kept breaking all the time and was difficult to move.
Probably better to just rent from private companies on this one.
They can't melt it in the streets
They would still have to cart it to centralized locations in order to melt it all efficiently...so, you're talking a zero-sum complaint. Either way it has to get trucked by big bad evil dump trucks. We use dump trucks every day through the entire year to haul large amounts of loose material. Would it be better/nice if we could find a less polluting way to haul stuff? Sure! But using dump trucks to haul stuff isn't a Captain Planet issue.
Making a machine whose sole purpose is to burn gas just to melt snow (something Mother Nature takes care of on her own in due time) just seems...icky. That's just a perception, not an economically, or even environmentally, accurate feeling necessarily. You could probably show evidence that untreated sewage could be pumped to melt the snow in place and yet not appreciably pollute the water supply while being economical...but there'd still be the idea in your head that "ew, you wanna pump dookies down the street just to melt snow??". I get those same creeps from a portable furnace burning gas simply to melt snow.