Hauling Snow

As most of you have realized the past couple of weeks have been fairly snowy and cold. Saturday night, the 1 inch dusting that was predicted actually turned into about 7 inches. Which means, Super Bowl Sunday became a day of snow removal. We can usually handle back to back snow storms of less than 3 inches per storm without running out of room for snow storage. However, with the 7 inches we recieved, we quickly filled up all of our dump locations and we were faced with a storm only two days later that was projected to possibly give us an additional 5-10 inches. CU-Boulder has a standing order contract with an earth work company here in Boulder, which we use as support for our operation when the amounts get to large for our staff and equipment.

We tend to use this contractor for plow support, but when we need large amounts of snow removed they have the equipment to tackle this job for us. As you all know, the campus is a very tightly clustered grouping of buildings which makes for a lot of sidewalks but not a lot of locatons to put snow for long term storage. On average, we have to haul snow two times per winter. This is our first time this year, but last year we hauled frequently due to the fact that it was the second snowiest winter in Boulder's history.

Partnerships like this one are absolutely crucial for efficient maintenance and operations of the campus. They allow campus to remain open during as many storms as possible.


Ryan