Despite recent downturns in temperatures and a late-December ice storm, officials with the Lake Forest Public Works Department said the city so far has used relatively little road salt, thanks to an overall milder-than-normal winter.
“It’s been great,” said Michael Thomas, public works director. “I’ve loved it.”
From the beginning of winter through late December, the city had used 166 tons of salt, officials said. All of it was used around a single large snow storm in November, Thomas said.
Updated totals after the Dec. 28 storm were not available as of press time, but last winter, the city began a new policy on salt use. The city would salt all roads as it always done from the beginning of winter through Jan. 15.
The reasoning behind the move was that more people would be driving during the holiday season and at the beginning of cold weather, drivers are getting re-acclimated to driving in the snow.
From Jan. 16 to the end of winter, the city cut salt use by 50 percent, officials said.
“We only salt main streets [fully].” Thomas said of the winter from Jan. 16 on. “In addition, we would salt hills, curves and intersection of side streets. A basic side street, we wouldn’t salt. Typically, when we go out, we used 110 tons during a basic snow storm. We want to bring that down to 50 tons.”
Last winter, the city paid $119 per ton for salt, a high price said Thomas. This year it’s down to $69.66 per ton. The city can store about 2,400 tons, which gets it through about 80 percent of the winter, on average, Thomas said.
While salt use depends on how often it snows, overtime pay for city employees depends on when the snow occurs, he said.
“This year [so far], it was a big number because it was all weekend work,” Thomas said. “It was $23,094 for [this winter through Dec. 21,] 2015. For the same time period last year, it was $7,411.”
The mild winter has had other benefits, he said. If city employees are not tied up with removing snow, they can do other work.
“It’s allowed us to continue street-sweeping,” Thomas said. “Come March, we get heavy rains and snow melt and we want the drains to be open and not covered with leaves. We ran the street sweeper until [Dec. 18].”
Employees in the public works and parks and recreation departments also continue to collect leaves from parks and in front of city buildings, remove ash trees afflicted by emerald ash borer, trim trees and continue with building maintenance and other tasks, officials said.
Jake Terlap, superintendent of public works in Lake Bluff, said the mild winter so far has had similar benefits in Lake Bluff.
“The good weather has let us continue to keep up the tree work and we have even had the street-sweeper out this month,” Terlap wrote in an email last month.
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