Crews across Ottawa have been busy clearing snow from city streets this winter, but once that snow is loaded up and hauled away, many residents wonder: where does it all end up? For Janice Ioi, clear streets are about more than convenience, they are about safety. “This is a school bus route. So, you know, it does matter to have the streets cleared,” Ioi said. She says this winter has been fairly typical for Ottawa and so has the city’s snow clearing response. “The snow removal has been fine this year. We live in Ottawa. It doesn’t seem like it’s that much worse. Definitely, we’ve had some really light winters lately, but it’s been manageable,” she said. Once the snow is cleared from neighbourhoods, it is trucked to one of six city-operated snow disposal facilities. “When we enter our snow removal operations, these facilities will run 24/7 for the period where we’re hauling snow in these areas,” said Bryden Denyes, the City of Ottawa’s area manager of urban roads. The city says the sites are designed to manage more than just melting snow. “The reason we have these is so as the snow melts, we want to control all the melt water and then make sure any debris that is in the snow piles, we are taking that, cleaning, disposing of it properly,” Denyes said. The city says this mountain of snow will get four times bigger before it starts to melt. As the snow pile shrinks, the water is collected and treated before it leaves the site. “When all this pile melts, the water will drain into the settling pond here. That way, we’re capturing any debris that comes out and gets into there, and then this gets treated, and then the water goes out from here,” Denyes said. Back on residential streets, some residents say they would like to see snow removal happen faster. “I wish they do it more often, but I guess they have to keep it within their budget. When the snowbanks get too high, it gets a little bit dangerous. It narrows in. But this street isn’t too bad. They do it pretty well,” said Gary Brand, an Ottawa resident. For Ioi, the bottom line is results. “They do a pretty good job. I think they’re pretty swift at getting it done. Better than Toronto,” she said. The city says as the mountains of snow continue to grow within the disposal facilities, they get so large that some won’t be fully melted until well into August.
