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March 23, 2008

Essex County towns scrambling to clear roads

By LOHR McKINSTRY

ELIZABETHTOWN -- Lots of snow and ice and a shortage of road salt have Essex County ready to give towns a one-time enhancement to plow county roads.

The county has annual snow- and ice-removal contracts with towns to handle county roads, and each town will get a payment equal to 25 percent of its per-mile rate times the number of miles of county roads it has.

The county pays so-called snowbelt towns $4,600 a mile and non-snowbelt towns $4,100 a mile to remove snow and ice.

Supervisor Joyce Morency (R-St. Armand) said the one-time payment will cover extra costs over what has been a severe winter.

"This is so we are not subsidizing the taxpayers in our towns for taking care of county roads."

The county will use its unexpended general-fund balance to make the payments, which must still have final approval from the full County Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor George Canon (R-Newcomb) said his town has high costs for salt and equipment repairs. He said Newcomb has only 20 miles of county roads and would get $18,000 more under the enhancement formula.

"I support the concept. But how much would it be countywide?"

He said he'd like to see a more detailed cost estimate by the County Ways and Means meeting March 31.

The county and many towns have just about used up their allotment of road salt for the season, Department of Public Works Superintendent Frederick Buck said.

"Trying to deal with the weather over the past several weeks has been more than a normal task. Not only was a record set for the snowiest February, but salt stockpiles have all but disappeared. What little salt we are receiving has been trucked all the way from the mines in Rochester, which adds to the trucking costs. The local stockpiles have been depleted.

"It seems like we just get it cleaned up, and then we get another dumping."

The county buys salt through a state contract, and Buck said that if they go over their allotments by more than 20 percent they must pay a premium of 10 percent more per ton.

The cost has been $51 a ton in the 2007-08 state contract but could increase by $5 a ton for going over allotment, plus a 60-cents-a-ton fuel adjustment. American Rock Salt supplies counties in northern New York.

Current salt prices in new contracts are running between $62 and $87 a ton.

lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com

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