How Cranberry handles heavy snow
CRANBERRY TWP — Winter came early in the township, as Dec. 9 was the first time crews were called out to battle the snow and ice to keep 133 miles of township roads clear for drivers.
Since then the public works team that handles winter weather has been called out 18 times, driven 14,178 miles and used 3,274 tons of salt and 50,640 gallons of brine, said Jason Dailey, Cranberry Township public works director.
“We manage these events very strategically,” he said. “We talk about it days in advance.”
Dailey and other members of the public works department gave a behind-the-scenes look at how the township handles snow events during the monthly Manager's Coffee on Tuesday night at the public works maintenance facility.
About 25 people attended the event, where they got a tour of the traffic operations center and explored the trucks and equipment used to care for roads through the winter.
Planning for and responding to a snow event begins days before a snowflake hits the asphalt. The public works department uses a weather service called DTN to closely monitor incoming snow and ice storms. Using weather forecasts, the township schedules drivers and makes a plan of attack.
Cranberry has 20 commercially licensed drivers in the public works department and can pull in CDL drivers from other departments within the township when necessary, Dailey said. There are 23 trucks equipped for winter.
Those drivers and trucks cover 14 snow routes throughout the township. A route takes about two hours to complete if a driver is only putting salt down and three to four hours if plowing snow and putting down salt, Dailey said.
In addition to more than 100 miles of road, the township has more than 300 cul-de-sacs. Those can be the most challenging thing for plow drivers, Dailey said, as the snow has nowhere else to go except into people's yards.
A common misconception with many residents is that when roads like Route 19, Freedom and Rochester roads are not cleared during snow events that the township is at fault.
“We get that same response from residents during just about every significant event,” said Dan Santoro, assistant township manager. “A lot of folks don't understand, we're not responsible for those state roads.”
The state maintains about 25 miles of roads running through the township, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Interstate 79, Route 228 and Callery, Franklin, Glen Eden, Rowan and Plains Church roads. The township is also not responsible for about 50 privately maintained, residential roads, which make up about 25 miles of road.
In addition to plowing, the township employs a few other methods for keeping roads clear. To keep the salt working in extremely cold temperatures, Dailey said they spray the salt with a liquid to make it stick better to the roads.
The liquid is either salt brine or a blend of magnesium chloride and brine, depending on the temperature. The goal is to have the salt be an “oatmeal consistency” when it comes off the truck.
They also have two trucks that spray brine to coat the roads directly before a storm hits. The brine keeps snow and ice from bonding with the road, Dailey said.
“The main goal of salt brine going down is to buy us some time,” said Bob Howland, streets manager in the public works department.
New ideas brewing
At some point in the future, the township may also be using the byproduct of brewing beer to coat the roads.
Dailey said he recently read an article about towns in Wisconsin using brine leftover from cheese manufacturers to coat the roads. While they don't have a lot of cheese manufacturers in Butler County, Dailey said he thought of the many microbreweries throughout the area.
The refined sugars in the brewing byproduct would be made into a concentrate that would then be sprayed on the roads. Dailey said organic materials tend to stick to the road better and for longer periods of time than traditional brine. They may get five-to-seven days duration on the roads, he said, whereas they only get about three days with the regular brine.
While it's still an idea, Dailey said he's reached out to breweries throughout the county about using their byproducts.
“The goal is to reduce salt usage,” Dailey said.
