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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Heavy snows bring driving woes

Aspen Public Radio News

Last week’s wet storms brought fresh powder up high, but left Aspen’s streets flooded and then frozen.

 

Jerry Nye is Aspen’s street superintendent. He said the pipes beneath storm drains freeze in the winter, so when it rained all day Monday, the water had nowhere to go in the stormwater system.

That meant ankle-deep puddles across town, which then froze. Nye and his team plow when it snows 3 inches or more, but major storm events call for bigger clearing.

“When it turned it cold and it snowed like it did we had to come in and cut all the snowpack off and the ice,” he said, referring to Tuesday’s storm.

The problem, according to Nye, is that there’s so much traffic during the days that it’s difficult to remove snow from the downtown core. There have been three nights so far this month that over 20 cars have been towed to allow crews to clear piles of snow.

Starting around midnight, they use a big snow blower to load up dumptrucks. On a night of moderate to heavy snow, Nye said his 11-person crews transport about 240 loads of snow to the storage facility at the Airport Business Center.

Nye’s crews are still working on clearing some giant alley piles in residential areas. The snow storage facility is not big enough to hold it all, but they aim to have streets wide enough for two cars to pass.

After last week’s storms, the storage area was about 3/4 full. If and when it fills up, the excess from future storms will go to Marolt Open Space.

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.
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