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If you love snow the 2011-2012 winter has not been for you so far.
And judging by reactions of many, you would also be in the minority.
Sure, there are school-aged children who love the occasional unscheduled
day off from classes. And to be honest, there’s probably a teacher or two
who doesn’t mind a one-day hiatus either.
But
whether you are in charge of running a township, a farmer, or are an
environmentalist, it’s difficult to find much downside to a simple lack of
snow this winter, unless you plow snow or sell road salt.
To put the weather situation in perspective, last winter the Philadelphia
International Airport recorded 44 inches of snow, the eighth-most in
history. And two winters ago was the highest snow amount measured at the
airport at 78.7 inches.
This winter has been quite the opposite. In fact, even after the snow on
Saturday, Jan. 21, the measurement at the airport for this winter was at
2.5 inches. The record for the lowest snow total was zero inches in
1972-73. Long-range forecasts by the National Weather Service are
predicting a warmer than normal February, so there may not be a lot of
inches to add to this winter’s total when it is finished.
One
measurement that local townships are enjoying about the mild winter has to
do with budgets. The buying of salt and brine to help melt the snowy and
icy roadways can be expensive. Then there is also the matter of needing
extra fuel for trucks and possible overtime for workers, especially if the
snow comes in the middle of the night.
So,
different towns do different things with money that was allocated for snow
removal, but not used. “We allocate so much money for overtime in public
works,” East Greenwich Township mayor Fred Grant said. “By having no snow,
we could reduce that number in the yearly budget or use it for other items
that need attention.”
East Greenwich, which has seen is population double to over 10,000 in the
last 10 years, also has increasing road needs that has led to a new public
works storage building recently completed on Wolfert Station Road next to
the new water tower. As new housing developments are completed, the
township is also responsible for maintaining those roads. So the mild
winter is a benefit there, too, in that roads the township was not
responsible for last year haven’t been added to the workload, yet.
“We’re money ahead right now,” Grant said the last week of January. “We’ve
gone out twice and salted once and that’s all we’ve had to do. The town is
responsible for all public streets once they are dedicated to the
municipality.”
Woolwich Township has also added several new roads in recent years due to
its development. “The one good thing, every year when we know we are
going to take over a new road due to development our public works manager
Anthony Bertino goes and gets a feel for the road and adds into budget,”
Woolwich Township Mayor Sam Maccarone said. “It’s definitely an added
cost, but basically we know we are going to get new roads.”
Maccarone said any money for the snow removal fund not used goes into a
trust fund so it can be used next winter if needed.
For
Logan Township, if there is any extra snow removal money left late in the
budget, it can be used for something else later in the winter.
“Line items like snow removal in the budget cannot be carried from year to
year,” said Logan Township Administrator Lyman Barnes. “Transfers between
line items in the budget can be made after November to cover any
unanticipated budget line item shortfalls. Unexpended monies are returned
to surplus at the end of each year.”
South Harrison Township has plenty of rural areas and roads that are
susceptible to drifting when there is some wind and snow. But it has a
system where it does not have to worry about paying overtime.
“Our town is a little unique when it comes to snow removal,” South
Harrison Mayor Jim McCall said. “We do not budget more money for overtime
or things of that nature. Our fine public works crew works whenever they
have to when it comes to snow removal or salting roads. Whatever extra
time they put in during a storm, in return, they receive comp time which
they use when there is no need for their services.”
McCall said the township budgets between $8,000 and $10,000 per year for
road salt which is purchased through Gloucester County at a shared service
price. The actual salt supply is kept in Woolwich Township at the old
municipal building on Woodstown Road. South Harrison also mixes in
concrete sand with the road salt to help keep the cost down.
“If
the weather continues to be kind to us, we will have a nice little
savings,” McCall said. “This money will end up going to a wish list kind
of item within the public works budget or wherever needed in the overall
budget.”
Swedesboro also has a shared service agreement with the county and budgets
$5,000 annually for snow removal. Like Woolwich, that money can’t be used
to help solve other issues at the end of the year if it is left over. It
goes into a snow removal trust fund, which Fromm says is at $11,000. That
money will remain in reserve to help meet future needs.
“We don’t store (salt) in town anymore (because of the shared service
agreement),” Fromm said. “This has proven to be much more efficient and
economical method to have an adequate supply of salt. We go to their
storage facility to pick up the salt as needed.”
While the county garage stores the salt, it has to come from somewhere.
One of the companies that sells salt to local townships and municipalities
is Cargill, which has an office in Logan Township. If you’re looking for
someone who’s unhappy about the lack of snow, it would be companies like
Cargill, because there’s less demand for what the kind of salt they mine
and sell. The company has been particularly hurt by the lack of snow
nationwide, not just in the South Jersey area.
“This winter has indeed been mild,” Cargill spokesperson Mark Klein said
in mid-January. “Looking at my window here in Minneapolis, I see brown
grass. That is unusual. Last year at this time we had more snow than you
could shake a shovel at.”
Klein said the company has cut back production at its mines in Cleveland,
Ohio, Lansing, N.Y., and Avery Island, LA.
“We haven’t had to layoff anyone at this point and the winter is still
young,” Klein said. “The general situation we are seeing now will happen
again in other years, just as we will see winters with so much snow that
many can’t wait to see it go. My guess is that the mild winter is
affecting all producers in a similar way.”
Another business the lack of snow has hurt is landscapers who also plow
parking lots for businesses during the winter. One of those places is
Green Acres Nursery Lawns in Swedesboro.
“It absolutely has been a downer for us,” said Randy Marcucci, President
of Green Acres. “Last year I think we had 11 plowable storms. This year
we’ve plowed once and ice-melted once.”
Marcucci said the snow plow business is not something he always counted
on, but has been particularly helpful in the past two winters.
“You always look at it as bonus,” he said, “because you do have years like
this. You can never bank on snow, but the past two years, with the
economy as bad as it has been, it’s been a real blessing to us that we had
bad winters. This year the economy is not any better, but the blessing of
extra snow didn’t come either.”
The
warm winter can be a blessing to at least some wildlife, especially for
larger animals such as deer. “Deer follow a yearly progression (based on
decreasing day length) into a sustenance diet of browse, with reduced
metabolism and activity,” said Patrick Carr, a supervising wildlife
biologist for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife. “The warmer
temperatures and available food will allow deer to not burn fat reserves
and come out of the winter in better shape.” It will also help
the diet of mid-sized animals.
“Some of the mid-level furbearers will benefit by no snow and partially
frozen ground by foraging on the now available small mammals, such as
voles, mice and moles,” Carr said.
And while there has been a lack of snow, there still has been no small
amount of precipitation in recent months. So, there are no immediate
concerns about a drought or short water supply.
“The New Jersey water supply reservoirs are in excellent shape with all
being between 95 to 100 percent full,” said Fred Sickels, director of the
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Water
Supply. “Assuming a normal precipitation winter, even without snow pack,
we should enter the high-use seasons with above average amounts of water
in storage. Having significant snow pack does provide water in storage for
potential capture by reservoirs later in the season as it melts, but this
year it does not appear to be a significant issue with regard to water
supply.”
The
water supply in the ground is also a significant issue for farmers. But
that supply doesn’t have to come from snow, which doesn’t add any useful
nutrients to the ground.
“Snow provides very little nutrition,” said
Jerry Frecon, an agricultural agent for the Rutgers New Jersey Agricutural
Experiment Station Cooperative extension in
Gloucester County. “Of course neither does our rainfall. Farmers can use
both organic and inorganic fertilizers or the natural decomposition of
other plant material to improve nutrition. There are also many other ways
to improve soil fertility.”
Frecon said it’s the amount, not the type, of precipitation that matters.
“Six to seven inches of snow is equivalent to one inch of rain,” Frecon
said. “If snow melts slowly and the ground is not frozen it infiltrates
the soil and is important in maintaining soil moisture. We need snow and
rainfall of about 40 inches per year, preferably well distributed
throughout the growing season.”
While precipitation hasn’t been an issue, the warm temperatures could be
an issue for some types of plants.
“As long as we get enough rainfall the lack of snow should not be a
serious problem on most crops,” Frecon said. “A much more serious problem
is the warm temperatures we are having. We do not need any temperatures
above 40 until late March and April to hold back perennial plants like
fruit crops and ornamentals.”
But
without the need to shovel the white stuff, the backs of area residents
may be able to hold up at least a year longer.
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