Chicagoans are well versed in the history of their blizzards, of what happens when all that snow gets dumped on the ground, hampering the movement of the region’s planes, trains and automobiles. Less clear is where the snow goes after removal crews have done their work.
A new answer to that question could be found Monday amid plumes of steam spewing from a rather odd contraption squatting in a holding area at O’Hare International Airport.
It was a snow melter, one of the latest tools Chicago is using to get rid of the white stuff in short order so the nation’s busiest airport can keep travelers safe and happy.
At the peak of the current cleanup, 11 melters at O’Hare and several more at Midway Airport turned 100-yard-long piles of snow, 15 feet high, into water at the rate of 600 tons per hour per machine. In three days, the machines consumed an estimated half a million tons of snow and sent the resulting water pouring into the airports’ vast drainage systems.
“I’m a big fan of technology,” Rich Kunicki, Chicago’s deputy aviation commissioner of safety and security, said as two front-end loaders dumped snow into a melter near departing planes at O’Hare. “You used to have a conga line of dump trucks,” which would take loads and dump them along the outer perimeter of O’Hare. That created major safety issues.”
More Top Picks Best Rolling Duffel Bags
Before this winter, at least 600 dump trucks would line up to take away snow during a routine 2- to 4-inch snowfall, he said. With the melters in action for the first time–at a cost of about $4.2 million paid for by the airlines at O’Hare–officials only were using about 30 dump trucks.
“This really is a quantum leap in safety and operations,” said Tim Phillips, a former city Aviation Department official who was brought in as a consultant. “It cuts down on the time you have people out there next to planes and on runways. And that’s the name of the game.”
The melters, leased from New York-based Aero Snow Removal Corp., use a 9 1/2-foot deep, steel melting vat containing water that is superheated by a 7-foot-long burner generating 112 million BTUs, said Aero President Peter Dejana. (By comparison, a typical boiler in a single-family home gives off about 200,000 BTUs, he said.)
Meanwhile, the Chicago Transit Authority also tried out some fancy new equipment of its own, sending out four “snow fighter” locomotives to push snow off the portions of track that run on embankments, said CTA spokesman Jeff Stern.
The locomotives are diesel-powered and can operate in the event of a power failure.
The initial effort to clear city streets after the storm resulted in the snow being pushed into such tall piles at some intersections that the views of motorists were blocked, resulting in potential traffic hazards, said Terry Levin, a spokesman for Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation.
In those cases, the snow was trucked away to areas of open land such as lots at 18th and Canal Streets and in the 2600 block on North Clark Street, the site of a former CTA garage.
Levin “couldn’t say” whether the city had received permission from the owners in instances where privately owned lots were used.
“We are dealing with an emergency,” he said. “We’re putting it wherever we think it won’t jeopardize public safety.”
Some who lived through the 1979 blizzard, when an amazing 34.4 inches fell in 10 days, say they can recall train cars laden with snow being chugged to areas south of the city. That story could not be confirmed Monday, but past practice aside, the snow isn’t going south these days.
Like the proverbial apple sticking close to the tree from which it fell, snow doesn’t move far now.
For example, “in a big parking lot area, one of the lots would be designated” to take the snow from the entire lot, said Fred Serpe, executive director of the Illinois Transportation Association, which represents about 14,000 trucking companies in the state.
In the aftermath of the weekend storm, thousands of trucks normally used for other tasks were pressed into service throughout the Chicago area to move snow, Serpe said. Snow that can’t be pushed into piles without creating a hazard is being hauled away.
“They usually just use a landfill or a quarry if it’s possible,” he said. “Otherwise, they dump it in any type of open area or ravine where it would melt.”
Do they truck it down South?
“No,” said Serpe. “The bottom line is, there’s no money in it.”