How and where to move snow and ice build-up in the community is just part of the Los Alamos County Snow and Ice Control Plan. Courtesy photo

County crews break up and remove ice from local streets. Courtesy photo

BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com 

It appears that some in the community think County snow and ice control operators in Los Alamos and White Rock can randomly choose where they want to plow and in what order. Nothing could be further from the truth. The County’s Traffic and Streets Division, which is part of the Public Works Department, publishes an annual Snow and Ice Control Plan that establishes guidelines for winter storm emergency operations. See FY24 Snow and Ice Control Plan(PDF, 6MB) The plan is prepared by Daniel Blea, the Traffic and Streets Division Manager.

County Public Works Director Juan Rael told County Council Tuesday evening that this has been a relatively busy season so far.

“We are hopefully half-way but we are actively continuing all the snow and ice removal operations,” he said.

The Plan is updated and approved annually by the County’s Transportation Board at an meeting that is publicized and open to the public. It is a 58 page document and contains thorough explanations for the three priority levels used for snow removal, maps and lots of other information.

“When it’s actively snowing, the plows will be on Priority 1 streets, which include Diamond Drive and the main arterial streets. Priority 2 includes streets with an average grade of 7.5 or greater and neighborhoods with only one way to ingress. Priority 3 is residential streets, which by far make up the largest volume of streets we look at,” Rael said.

He said every year during the “pre-season” planning meetings are held to go over lessons learned, employee safety, where to put the snow in the streets and in the cul de sacs, and all the different aspects of snow and ice removal.

“We don’t clear every single side walk. We plow those on our safe routes to school and in primary areas such as downtown,” Rael said.

This season, he said there have been many comments from the community but that the main complaint has been that plow operators are plowing snow into places that have already been cleared by homeowners.

“It’s hard for the operator to know where to put the snow. That’s the biggest obstacle we face. When the snow plows come through they can either plow down the middle of the road or they can plow edge to edge, which is what we do to keep the black street as clear as possible,” Rael said.

He described how people on Arizona Avenue had complained a lot about the edge to edge plowing was being done, so the County experimented by just plowing down the middle of the road.

“We did that for one storm and we ended up getting a ton of complaints from the opposite side. People complained that they couldn’t get their cars out of their driveways and many of the people who asked us to try it asked us to go back to the previous method,” Rael said.

Rael said his team takes snow and ice removal very seriously.

“Our operators are very dedicated to this. They work very long, grueling hours at all hours of the night. When we call them out it could be midnight or 3 a.m.,” he said.

“The wet, slow storms with very low temperatures are the hardest storms to respond to. With six inches of fresh powder we just plow it off. It’s those small storms with a couple of inches of wet snow and freezing temperatures that are the hardest. If the ground is covered with ice, there’s not a lot we can do. We can’t scrape the ice. We put down a mixture of sand, sale and other de-icing material and we need the traffic to work that in,” Rael said. “We are very strategic about where we put that down because it’s one of the highest costs in the Traffic and Streets budget. We put that down right before the morning rush hour because we want the sun to come up and vehicles to drive on top of it. If we sand at night, the ice will melt and freeze again.”

He said the division continues to address concerns from the community.

“Something that would really help our operators would be if possible, don’t park in the street. Some of the messaging we have put out to encourage this has helped,” Rael said. “Secondly, we have assigned operators with one area each to cover. So if we get complaints from an area, that operator goes to address them. We’re trying to provide that accountability for our staff and if an operator makes a mess, we want that operator to clean it up and not pass it on to the next person on the crew”.

The Snow & Ice Control Plan contains the following information about the responsibilities of residents during winter storms in the community:

During winter storms, the residents will have certain responsibilities that will assist with the effectiveness of the snow and ice control operations. These resident responsibilities include the clearing of their own driveways and sidewalks and clearing their areas for trash pickup and for mail or newspaper deliveries. Residents are encouraged to clear their sidewalks of snow and ice within 24 hours of the culmination of the storm. Also, residents are responsible for ensuring that they do not obstruct the ordinary use of the County’s public streets and sidewalks. Therefore, residents must not deposit snow or ice from their property onto County streets and sidewalks but instead should pile their snow onto locations within their own private property.

One common misperception is that the County’s snow and ice control operators intentionally deposit snow into driveways and walkways. However, this is the result of normal plowing operations when plows are angled to the right for plowing from the centerline of the street towards the curb. For this reason, windrows will form, and a certain amount of snow will be deposited in front of driveways and on sidewalks. Operators attempt to minimize these instances the best they can. However, it is not practical to fully eliminate this situation while being able to effectively address the storm. Residents should be aware that they may have to re-clear their driveways or sidewalks after their street is plowed. One thing that will greatly assist with the winter storm operations is for residents to park their vehicles at off-street locations when a winter storm warning is in effect. This will help the snow removal crews perform their duties in a timely manner and with greater success. Once the storm has passed and the mop-up operations have been completed, residents could resume on-street parking.

 Regarding trash and recycling collection, it is recommended that residents clear a spot on the roadway and place the roll carts in a safe manner. As soon as the roll carts have been serviced, the resident should remove the roll carts from the street. This will allow the snow removal team to effectively plow the street without the added obstruction of the carts.

A Los Alamos County operator plows snow and spreads material to de-ice roads in the community. Courtesy photo