*snerk*

[icepixie]

Hey, Northerners: Here is what you need to deal with your excess snow! Apparently it can double as a weed-whacker. Er, weed-burner. For when you really do have a scorched earth policy.

In a similar vein, I recently wondered why cities don't just collect the worst of the snow and dump it into a convenient lake/river/ocean, but I suppose there's salt and motor oil and whatnot in it that the fish wouldn't appreciate. Though maybe if you could run it through a wastewater plant first or something...

Comments

[celamity]

Up here, they do dump the freshest layer of snow in the ocean. Getting 1/2-2 feet at a time is a fairly common occurrence, and when that happens, they scoop all the fresh snow up in huge piles. When the roads are cleared for traffic, they truck the snow away and dump it in the ocean.

The contaminated snow piles are usually melted by mid june.

[icepixie]

they truck the snow away and dump it in the ocean.

This seems wise.

The contaminated snow piles are usually melted by mid june.

But...don't the contaminants still make their way to the ocean, just six months later? (We've been discussing it over on the LJ version of this post, and can't figure out why it's okay as runoff and not as...pushoff. Or whatever the term would be.)

[celamity]

Much of the road dust merges into the soil it eventually lies upon.

Thing is, why worry about car pollutants when it is made visible by snow, and then not worry about it the rest of the year?

[icepixie]

Thing is, why worry about car pollutants when it is made visible by snow, and then not worry about it the rest of the year?

Well, that's pretty much what I meant in my comment. After I made my original post, I thought about it and realized that all the storm drains everywhere I've lived, which the snow would melt into, all lead straight to rivers and lakes, so why not shove it on in there at the start instead of waiting until it melts?