Managing Vermont’s winter wonderland

The discomfort of trudging through endless snow is tempered only by one important consideration: at least we didn’t have to shovel it.
Keeping the paths clear of snow and ice has occupied facilities this winter to a degree that Lanscape Supervisor Bob Cameron has not seen in his four years at his job.
“This is the worst I’ve seen since I’ve been around,” Cameron said. “We normally would do more tree pruning and dead-wooding and stuff like that [during the winter], but we have spent the majority of our time dealing with snow removal [this year].”
Assistant Director of Facilities Services Luther Tenny said in an e-mail that he estimated the school had already spent 30 percent more on snow removal than last year due to the harshness of the winter. The increased cost of this year’s maintenance results from the enormous amount of man-powered equipment needed to cope with a Vermont winter. At Middlebury there are 57 people now enlisted in the snow-removal crew and these members hail from every department in facilities, including but not limited to landscape, carpentry, plumbing, and custodial.

“These folks are fantastic, and they do a fantastic job of snow removal,” Cameron said. “If this year hasn’t proven that to everybody, then it’ll never get proven, because this has been a horrific year.”
Depending on whether or not an employee is part of a shovel crew, or operates a plow truck, sidewalk tractor, or some of the much larger equipment, they may arrive at Middlebury at 2, 4 or 6 a.m. during or after a snowstorm to begin clearing the way for students and faculty.
“An amazing amount of coordination [is required], not just for snow removal, but for everything,” Cameron said. “We watch the weather forecast constantly.”
In Vermont, most predicted snowstorms deliver snowfall, so when facilities sees a predicted storm, they plan to arrive at work the next day in the middle of the night. Even if the storm does not materialize, most of the 57 snow removal crew members will show up anyway, just in case.
Although the group has not found itself too overworked this year — even if workers come in at two in the morning, they still only work an eight-hour day, allowing them to go home by 10 a.m. — the manpower required for the clearing has still strained the department.
“We just do what we can,” Cameron said. “Sometimes we may not get out as quickly as we used to but we just don’t have the manpower.”
The pure physicality of the job has also made this winter a particularly exhausting one.
“[The job is] very physical,” Cameron said. “That’s why I have the utmost  respect for these people, especially the shovellers. We’re fortunate not to have more injuries than we have had; it’s a physical challenge.”
Facilities has worked to improve the sidewalks this year by experimenting with the use of salt instead of sand. After the administration asked facilities to recommend a better way to clear paths last year, facilities did some reserach and ended up recommending something called “magic salt.” Magic salt is like regular salt, but has been sprayed with another product called Ice Ban, which is a liquid made from beer wasteproducts. Unlike regular salt, which breaks the bonds between the pavement and condensation, the Ice Ban helps magic salt prevent  the bond between the ice and the sidewalks from forming in the first place. This magic salt has allowed facilities to cut the amount of salt they would have had to use this winter by a third. But there are drawbacks:
“Salt is better than sand but isn’t really good for the environment, especially when I consider my trees,” said Landscape Horticulturist Tim Parsons. “There is a real cost to trees with way excessive salt use.”
Parsons gave the example of the University of Vermont campus, where there are large patches of bare ground on each side of the pathways because of years of heavy salt use. Middlebury facilities, which has always used sand and thus has been able to maintain healthier grass, hopes that the reduced quantity of magic salt required will offset the negative effects of using the salt.

The use of salt also has another important impact on facilities: it has reduced the need for manpower and machinery. Because sand does not stick in one place, it has to be reapplied constantly. With salt, fewer applications are necessary.

“We’re not using as much equipment time as we have been, which means less noise, less fumes, less carbon dioxide,” Parsons said.

Students have already had the opportunity to enjoy increasingly clear paths this winter, and facilities hopes salt will continue to be a mainstay in the future. Ultimately, it is the ability to coordinate and work together that has allowed the department to get through the extreme weather this year;
“We’re a pretty close-knit group,” Cameron said. “Things run pretty smoothly.”