Weather has city crews plowing leaves in November

LAUNCH RAMP DOCKS that were pulled from the water just two weeks ago when the Port Washington marina was closed for the season framed the lighthouse in a photo that looks like it was taken in the dead of winter but instead illustrated the single-digit temperatures on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Photo by Bill Schanen IV
“It’s way too early for this,” Port Washington Street Commissioner J.D. Hoile said Tuesday, referring to the unseasonably cold and snowy temperatures that have put an undeniable crimp in the city’s fall leaf collection operations.
Piles of leaves topped with snow and ice are still laying in gutters throughout the city while the crews that normally would collect them are plowing snow off the streets.
“One day we’re plowing, the next day we’re picking up leaves,” Hoile said, adding that crews are trying to avoid plowing the leaves back into yards.
But the problem is that snow and ice now cover the leaves residents have raked into the gutters, something that makes it impossible for crews to use the vacuum trucks, Hoile said.
“If they’re frozen or snow-covered, that’s when we run into problems,” he said. “If the snow melts off and they’re just wet, we can pick them up.”
Street crews have resorted to plowing the leaves out of the gutter and into the street, then picking them up with a loader and dumping them into a truck to haul them to the city garage, Hoile said.
“You get about 95% of the leaves, but the remaining 5% are all over,” he said.
It’s a more labor-intensive process, Hoile said, but one that many municipalities use to collect leaves.
There’s one other challenge, Hoile said.
“The guys have to try to decipher what’s a snow pile and what’s a leaf pile,” he said.
“It’s been a goofy winter.”
Some people have bagged their leaves and brought them to the city yard to dispose of them, Hoile said.
Typically, he said, crews spend late October and early November not just picking up leaves but also preparing the equipment for snowplowing season and doing some test runs to make sure everything’s working properly. The leaves come down gradually, and crews pick them up as they fall throughout the season.
Not this year.
“This year, it was just throw the blades on the trucks and get plowing,” Hoile said. “It’s happening, let’s go.”
Crews usually continue to pick up leaves until early December, he added.
“This is definitely something we’re not used to dealing with this early in the season.”
Although crews were hoping snow wouldn’t fly until January, Hoile said the department’s snow removal budget hasn’t taken too deep a hit so far.
“We’re in OK shape,” he said. “If it gets into a pattern and continues, that will change.”
Crews still need to wrestle with the fact that there are still a significant number of trees that still have at least a portion of their leaves, Hoile acknowledged.
Hoile said the city is determined to pick up leaves as long as it can. The weather forecast for next week calls for temperatures in the 40s, which should melt much of the snow and allow crews to use the vacuum trucks to pick up leaves in the gutters.
“Anything above freezing would be good,” he said.
If they can’t get all the leaves up now, Hoile said, the crews will take advantage of any significant changes in the weather, even if they come in February — he recalled temperatures reaching 70 in February a couple years ago‚ to complete the work.
After all, leaves left in the gutters throughout winter will likely be plowed back onto residents’ lawns as roads are cleared, and in spring they can clog the storm sewers.
In all, he said, residents have been understanding of the department’s dilemma.
“I think a lot of people had their plans change with the early snow,” Hoile said. “We’re going to pick up leaves as long as we can. If they don’t get cleaned up now, they’ll get cleaned up in spring.”
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