Local governments save on snow removal after record winter

EAU CLAIRE — One of the primary jobs for counties in the winter is to remove snow from the roads. It’s expensive and time consuming. But when winter takes the year off how much do they save?

According to Eau Claire County Highway Commissioner Jon Johnson, between January 1 and February 21 the cost for snow plowing was $89,227. That is around $157,000 less than the cost of operations in the winter in 2023.

“We are saving quite a bit of money in regards to winter maintenance,” said Johnson.

Chippewa County Highway Commissioner Brian Kelley said his department also saw substantial savings. In January and February of 2024, they spent $371,529. From the start of the year to March 18, they had spent a paltry 22.5% of their budget for 2024.

That’s good news, and not just for this year.

“Any savings we have related specifically to winter maintenance goes to an account so when we do have a severe winter season we can use those funds,” said Johnson.

The fund has been very low in recent years for Eau Claire, said Johnson.

Things work a little differently in Chippewa County, which has two options when they have money saved for winter maintenance. Kelley said the first option is to put it towards highway and bridge maintenance made in the winter, including pothole patching, shaping gravel shoulders, and culvert inspections.

Or they do the same thing Eau Claire County does.

“Otherwise, savings in our winter maintenance fund are ‘non-lapsing’. We use savings to build up a reserve for other winters that may be more severe,” said Kelley.

If Chippewa County saves more money than they would need they will change the future budget to put some money that would have gone to winter maintenance into road construction, Kelley said.

Joe Strus, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service Twin Cities, said in October and February it snowed 16.4 inches locally. That’s in the five least snowiest snow seasons in Eau Claire.

“Eau Claire observed a record warmest December,” said Strus. “The average temperature was over 12 degrees above normal.”

Strus said January and February were above the average temperature as well.

“It was warm and dry and didn’t have the makings for a very wet and cold winter scenario,” said Strus.

Strus said there wasn’t a big snow until the spring, though there’s a detail that you need to know to understand the timing. Meteorological winter is December, January, and February. March snow doesn’t count, despite the fact most of the month is prior to the spring solstice.

With the lack of snow removal needs Eau Claire County has been focusing on their brushing program, said Johnson. This includes “mowing and removing brush along the right-of-way”.

Over the last three years the county has tried to remove brush from a section of the county per year.

“We have never been able to hit that goal because of the snowfall amounts that we received,” said Johnson. “This year in 2024 I have been informed that we will actually be able to clear an entire section because of the low amounts of snow that we received.”

The section they will be removing brush from is in the northern center of the county around the Town of Seymour and part of the area around The Town of Ludington, said Johnson.

During a normal winter they would be doing snow plowing and maintenance of the road, said Johnson.

Chippewa County was also able to put more focus on brushing during the winter, said Kelley.

“Our crews were able to get a lot of hazardous vegetation removed from State & County rights-of-way,” said Kelley. “We have also been able to utilize our spray patching machine for many of the potholes that developed this winter and spring.”

Kelley described the spray patching machine as a longer and more expensive way to patch potholes than using cold-mix patch material and shovels but the product will be stronger and will be able to maintain its placement when everything thaws in the spring.

According to Chippewa County’s Winter Maintenance website, they plow 670 lane miles of state highways and 996 lane miles of county highways. These highways are split up into four distinctions that have a usual range of coverage; from the busiest State #1 Highways which are covered for 24 hours to less busy County #2 highways which are covered for 14 hours.

While it had been a dry winter in the past week there was a lot more precipitation including a record rainfall of 1.33 inches on Tuesday in Eau Claire, said Strus. This beat the previous 1906 record of 1.06 inches.

According to the Midwestern Regional Climate Center, in March there was an additional snow of 14.3 inches. This was outside the meteorological winter and did not count toward its total snowfall.

With less snow this winter the counties have saved on their winter maintenance and have been able to work on other projects, but they aren’t the only organizations involved in snow removal. More on how this winter affected companies involved in snow removal on Tuesday.