It has acquired a number of nicknames – Snow Mountain, Mount Slushmore, “that pile of stuff.” The metres-high stack of snow, salt and road grit near the Wallace Avenue bridge has garnered a lot of attention.
The pile has steadily grown over the winter, with city snow clearing crews dumping snow and related detritus at the site near Ross Creek. Over the winter months, the pile has grown to as much as an estimated 10 metres tall.
It’s not a customary city snow dumping site – the typical locations for snow dumping include areas near North Avenue Park, Centoba Park and Highway 10A. According to Charles Boulet, the City of Flin Flon’s director of public works, a higher than expected volume of snow this winter led to the Wallace Avenue site being used.
“Because of the unusual winter this year, we had such a high volume of snow. It saves a lot of money if we can find new dumping areas,” he said.
“It’s been used before. In years where we don’t have to dump it there, then we don’t dump it there.”
Now that the surface snow has begun to melt, the road grit, dirt and salt have given the pile an unappealing brown colour. There’s still snow underneath, but the pile often ends up looking like a mound of dirt.
“How it looks right now, everything that’s darker, the grit and everything like that, it ends up sitting on top of what’s still snow underneath. It looks like a real eyesore,” said Boulet.
Initially started out of convenience for crews and cost cutting for the city, two big questions remain – what effect will it have on Ross Creek, and how long is it going to stay?
Boulet said the effect on the creek, either in salinity or water level, will be minimal.
“Most of the grit and everything ends up on the ground, where we can clean it up. It doesn’t end up in the creek,” he said.
Once it is cleaned, most of the salt and grit will end up in storm sewers, where it may end up back in lakes and rivers around Flin Flon. Boulet said the salt used by the city is formulated to dissolve in warm water.
“They could find their way to the creeks and they have natural attenuating things. If there’s a windy area with bogs or certain plants, those plants usually take care of any things there might be in the water,” said Boulet.
As far as cleaning the site goes, operations for moving leftover material will occur later in the spring. It is too early to set an exact date when the site could be fully cleaned, but Boulet suggested the site should be totally clear by mid-June.
“There might be some residual snow, but we’ll go over it and clean the area up so it’s closer to its natural state. We’ll get rid of the grit as much as we can,” he said.
