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What happens
when two great forces of nature collide? First there’s a mess. Then citizens
call their public works and roads department asking what can be done about
it.
 The
Inter-mountain West, defined by the US Census Bureau as Montana, Idaho,
Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah is the fastest
growing region in the country. Since the last major census in 2008, the area
is on pace to hit twenty percent growth by 2010. And by 2030 the estimate is
for sixty-five percent growth.
With one birth every seven seconds, one death every eleven seconds, and one
additional (net) international migrant every 30 seconds, it all makes for a
new person in the US every thirteen seconds. Couple that with the migration
of people from the coasts, and the mountains aren’t as lonely as they once
were.
One force of nature, population growth in the mountains, ran into a serious
winter wallop by Mother Nature this season. Public works and roads
departments were stretched thin and expectations were high in the high
country.
This quarter, Around the Industry surveyed public works and roads
departments in the Rocky Mountain region to understand how they’ve dealt
with snows of over 50 percent above average and what that means in areas
with so many new residents. Also, we investigate how asset and resource
management software is helping departments make sense of it all.
John Baker is in charge of roads for the Town of Snowmass Village in
Colorado. The mountain town isn’t too large, but has a ski resort that
attracts thousands of visitors and second homeowners. When huge amounts of
snow melt, floods become a real possibility. “PubWorks helps
protect the Town.” Baker says of the PubWorks asset and
resource management software his department employs. A citizen who had
recent flood damage in his home claimed that the Town was liable. Baker was
able to produce detailed reports on culvert maintenance and other flood
mitigation work when push came to shove.
“We document and track our work and were able to show that reasonable work
was done. When you can do that, attorneys tend to back off.”
To stay on top of things, Snowmass is banking a ton of overtime this winter.
Laughs Julie Lindt, administrative assistant, “It’s amazing. PubWorks
asks, ‘Are you sure?’ (referring to a pop-up message in the program) I say,
‘Well yeah.’”
In Park County, Colorado, they’ve gotten about 120% of the average snow pack
in early March. The county commissioners declared a disaster when the county
couldn’t keep up with snow and winds.
Four neighboring counties and the Office of Corrections came to the rescue.
Said Doug Keith of Park County Road and Bridge, “We only have two tracks
open now. You can’t see the edge of the road.” Though the situation was
brought under control, a few issues were brought up. First, with an 18
percent increase in population in Park County in six years, there were more
people than ever calling the Road and Bridge Department. Keith says that
realtors tell new residents, who generally come in from cities on the east
and west coasts, that the county will take care of the streets. In reality
they are living in private subdivisions, responsible for their own snow
removal. Keith says that it’s hard when people who need oxygen or
medications call his department because they can’t get out of their
driveways.
PubWorks will especially come in handy when the snows start to
subside, Keith claims. His department knows where everything is near the
roads: signs, guardrails, mailboxes, etc. But, those agencies that came to
their rescue didn’t. So, there’s likely to be heaps of damage found in
springtime. Luckily, he’ll be able to pull reports from previous projects
logged in his database and pull up repair and replacement costs easily, and
in time to include in the next budget-cycle.
Jackson Hole, a ski resort in Wyoming had just received a storm depositing
thirty-five inches of new snow at the time of your correspondent’s call.
Conan Beesley, Assistant Superintendent or Roads and Levees for Teton
County, says the Snake River could swell from its current 3,800 cubic feet
per second (cfs) to an incredible 34,000 cfs in springtime. They’re
monitoring the situation, but have only four full-timers in their
department.
Brandon Raz, the Streets Manager in the town of Jackson, says that his
department and contractors have hauled upwards of 2,818 dump truck loads
of snow out of town so far. He tracks this department’s work on an Elements
2006 management program. “(We try to) track everything that leaves the
building, just about down to the nuts and bolts.” He then uses reports
pulled from the program when interfacing with council members, reporters,
the public, or for budget requests.
Raz also echo’s John Baker of Snowmass Village, Colorado saying that his
system helps protect the town on issues of liability. “If we know a stop
sign is down, we have everything tracked from when the call came in to when
we responded to it.”
When asked if people call in to the county department wondering why the snow
isn’t yet cleared, Beesley of Teton County says, “Every ten minutes. There
are lots of newbies, mainly from the East Coast. They come here and expect
the same services as where they came from.” But in Teton County, ninety-six
percent of the land is federally owned. “There isn’t the tax-base to support
a full-time county snow removal staff. All the work is subcontracted out and
has been since the 1960’s,” explains Beesley.
In Pitkin County, Colorado, there is so much plowing to be done this season
they switched to a three-shift schedule. Without working drivers into
extreme overtime, the county covers nineteen hours of each day.
Moffat County, Colorado spent the whole year’s overtime by early March
dealing with keeping roads clear. Says Linda DeRose, Manager of the County
Road Department, “More and more people are moving into the county. Now they
want more roads open in bad winters.” This spring they’ll look at data on
specific roads to justify a budget increase, one that will allow them to
open some of the roads they previously hadn’t needed to prioritize. And,
they’ve used their PubWorks program to accurately charge
different departments for different clean-up jobs performed over the winter.
As public works departments are charged with accommodating increasing
populations, things can get rough around the edges; especially when Mother
Nature throws in her two cents. In the Inter-mountain West, both the forces
of population growth and weather are hard at work. This year the snow will
melt and summer will come again. And when it does, public works departments
won’t be resting. They’ll be analyzing the work they put in over the last
season to be better prepared to bring their towns and counties through the
next long winter.
Table of Contents Volume 4, Edition 2
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