GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A Green Bay Public Works truck hauling away snow has become an all too common sight, but it raises the question — where does all that snow go?
It turns out that there’s no man-made Mount Everest and no secret cave.
According to Green Bay Public Works operations director, Chris Pirlot, the answer is a yard waste center on the city’s west side.
“In the winter time, we keep the surface plowed out so we can drive trucks in there without getting stuck and we will dump our snow out at the west side yard waste center, which is out by the bay,” explains Pirlot.
The location’s proximity to the bay is an important component of the future process of disposing of the snow.
“So as it melts in the spring it saturates into the ground and ultimately gets into the bay,” he says.
That process of melting and eventually saturating the ground doesn’t happen overnight, but the department notes that the location allows for the process to happen at a gradual pace.
“It takes a while for it to melt, but it’s out of the way and it’s not hurting anything,” says Pirlot.
In fact, nearby residents are more than likely used to seeing the pile of snow well into the spring months.
“Sometimes we can see snow and ice chunks as late as say May,” he says.
In terms of the amount of snow at the site right now, it leaves some room to be desired for those within Green Bay Public Works.
Pirlot notes that consistent severe weather for the past few weeks has hampered their ability to perform snow removal, as they’ve been forced to shift a majority of their attention to plowing and salting.
“We have done some snow removal along Shawano Avenue, because we had too,” he says. “We just did a little along Main Street, ultimately we need to get into the downtown.”
He notes that the snow removal situation throughout downtown is getting vital, since narrow streets are limiting how much more snow can accumulate along medians and other spaces.
His department is hoping for a string of consecutive nice days where they can get out and ramp up the snow removal effort throughout the city.
