Snow no fun for budgets

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

It’s no secret: with this past weekend’s snowstorm increasing this winter’s snowfall to 352 centimetres — 31 centimetres shy of the 383-centimetre record of 1971 — there is a lot of white stuff on the ground, and local municipalities’ wallets are feeling the pinch.

Last week, the Pierrefonds/Roxboro borough enacted the two-year option in their three-year contract with Les Pavages d’Amour Inc., which had been set for 230 centimetres of snowfall. The change will add $197,000 to the contractor’s snow removal contract, bringing it to $412,000. According to the borough’s communication director, Johanne Palladini, along with this winter’s near-record snowfall, the 142 centimetres that fell in November and December 2007 did not give Pierrefonds/Roxboro enough time to finish preparing their snow dump near Highway 13 to environment ministry standards. This obliged the contractor to truck the snow to the Chateau-Pierrefonds dump, a 17-kilometre detour from the eastern sector of the borough.

“We need to finish the snow dump at the 13, because the one at Chateau-Pierrefonds is full,” Palladini said.

In addition, Pierrefonds/Roxboro is renting four additional semi-trailer trucks with operators for transporting snow to the dump site. The work hours per truck were also bumped from 225 hours to 475 hours.

Palladini could not give any precise figures about where Pierrefonds/Roxboro stands in their snow clearing budget.

“We’re in transit. We’re changing our accounting system and I don’t know where we’re at for now,” she said, adding, however, the borough will most likely go over. “Probably, just like everyone else.”

Pierrefonds/Roxboro isn’t the only place wishing for spring. Dollard des Ormeaux Mayor Ed Janiszewski said his town is over this season, because they had budgeted conservatively based on winters over the last four to five years.

“But now, we’re back to a 1971 experience,” he said, adding surpluses from past years will help make up for this season’s winter surprises. Dollard will be about $250,000 over their contractor’s budget and about $50,000 over the overtime budget, he said. “But we have no qualms about it. It (snow clearing) is a necessary expense.”

Janiszewski, however, said Dollard has a much easier task compared to boroughs like Pierrefonds/Roxboro, because they only remove about 15 per cent of the accumulated snow, while the rest “gets blown onto our lawns.” As for the snow dump off Brunswick Boulevard in the centre of town, Janiszewski said it is quite full. “But we still manage to pack a little more in,” he added.

The situation is similar in Beaconsfield, according to director general Patrice Boileau. From the snow that falls on the city’s 120 kilometres of streets, only about 10 per cent is trucked away to snow dumps in Pierrefonds and Pointe Claire. However, he said Beaconsfield will probably bust its overtime budget by about $20,000 to $30,000.

“It’s not fun, but it’s nothing compared to places where they carry all of the snow,” he said.

Pointe Claire Mayor Bill McMurchie said last week his city is still within budget, and there is still room in their snow dump off Sources Boulevard.

“But we’ll be glad to see spring,” he said, adding this last storm probably left the city close to 90 per cent of their snow clearing budget of $2.3 million. “That amount is based on historical figures, and not necessarily last year. Last year we only had 165 centimetres of snow.”

With close to 200 kilometres of street and 150 kilometres of sidewalk, McMurchie said the city’s crews are doing the best they can to keep arteries clean, but have not been able to cut back all snow banks at street corners, which can pose a danger to traffic and pedestrians. Luckily, there have been no major accidents associated to this.

“The absence of an accident doesn’t mean we don’t wish we could cut those corners back,” McMurchie said. “We try to solve it at the corners. With a little bit less snow, we would have been able to do it.”

With all the snow making it seem like this winter will never end, Janiszewski assured we will get through it, looking back at March 4, 1971.

“It was an exceptional day. It was a Thursday, and everything was closed on the Friday, and we were digging out all weekend,” he said. “A lot of cars were buried in snow drifts, and you could barely see them.”

“But, spring is coming, and it will all start melting soon,” Janiszewski said.