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A bumper crop on the water
By adamg on Tue, 02/03/2015 - 5:23pm
The folks at Conventures have a bird's eye view of the city snow farm rapidly rising in the seaport area - the snow mounds are up to 20 feet high now.
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Comments
The whole lot is practically
The whole lot is practically full now. I've been watching the pile get higher while at work. It looks like it could be easily landscaped into an ultimate sledding grounds.
What is that ship at anchor
What is that ship at anchor there ? Marinetraffic.com only shows live MSC Angela berthed at Conley.
Marinetraffic.com
You learn something new every day. Way cool - thanks
Melting Pool?
Should we grab a calendar and place our bets?
I biked by one in Winnipeg in early September that still had a mountain of ice in it. The dozers were working hard to spread it out, as it wasn't going to be melting for much longer.
We can tax the snow to pay
We can tax the snow to pay for fixing the MBTA and the Olympics!
Okay, I just got this thought
Okay, I just got this thought and I honestly just want a good answer. Seeing that snow farm is right by the sea, isn't the runoff going to pollute? Doesn't that defeat the point of not dumping into the harbor policy?
Answer
You know, I was curious also so I looked.. and looked.. and looked. But didn't come up with any real answer. All I could find out is why we generally can't do it. (and someone else has asked this before!)
Yes the main reason is for chemicals, but its also for just crap in the snow. Lots of trash is scooped up when we shovel/plow/snowblow and its carted away to these snow farms. At least the snow can melt in the snow far and leave the trash behind to be swept up later.
And as far as the run off maybe there's just enough snow it dilutes it enough where the chemicals are low enough where it's safe to do run into the ocean. Because you know any storm drains out that far on the waterfront probably just drain into the ocean.
OR the city could have a waiver from the MassDEP
But this is all an educated guess from what I read. (and I welcome to be corrected if I am wrong)
Link 1 - Someone else in 2011 who asked the same question
Link 2 - Curious question from WBZ
I thought about this for a
I thought about this for a minute, and it's possible the snow farm is in a combined sewer overflow (CSO) area, in which case, the runoff is treated with everything else at Deer Island, if it does make it to a storm drain.
I gave it a cursory search, and lo and behold, the area where Conventures took this snowfarm photo is in a CSO area (everywhere but the small, tan areas):
http://www.mwra.com/cso/mainimages/04-2012-cso-map...
The exception is when storm water overwhelms the capacity of Deer Island. Then the CSOs are activated, but even then, "most of the active CSOs in MWRA's service area receive treatment such as screening, disinfection and dechlorination." http://www.mwra.com/03sewer/html/sewcso.htm
So even in the worst case, the snow melt is getting some treatment over just dumping it in waterway. As a bynote, I am amazed at how little of the Boston-area has regular storm sewers, even areas that are right by the water.
Also new to me, storm sewer discharge is regulated by the EPA for cities w/ a population over 10,000. So there are even standards for runoff going into what we thought was straight into the ocean. http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/npdes/stormwater/Mun...
Winter is Never Ending...
Can we turn this into a mini Winterfell?
Or "The Wall"? Probably have enough snow for it after this upcoming week.