Grand Forks Talks Snow Removal

(KNOX) -You might not appreciate the amount of work that goes into removing snow from Grand Forks city streets.

Grand Forks Director of Public Works Sharon Lipsh said it takes about a minute for the snow blowers to fill a truck and about 30 minutes for the driver to drop off the snow and return to removing more snow.

“Our most skilled operators are the ones operating the motor graders to pull the snow into the street. We use the snow blowers that are on the loaders and blow it into the trucks. And we have six-to-seven trucks that haul it away to the closet storage site,” Lipsh said.

It may not be snowing yet, but the Grand Forks Public Works Department is getting ready for snow removal from city streets.

“There are berms throughout town that don’t have enough capacity when we have big winters, sidewalks that are right adjacent to the street. So there is no berm and we see that in residential and downtown. We move snow around mail boxes, intersections with poor visibility, downtown alleys with no snow storage and parking lots and ramps downtown,” Lipsh said.

The snow is taken to snow storage sites around Grand Forks and dumped.

“Push the piles up like we do on the north end site. At the school site currently, we just dump the snow out of the trucks, and we don’t push it up. So the snow melts faster in the spring. For reference, on the North Mill Road site in July last year there was still snow there,” Lipsh said.