Spring is creating a few dips in the road for public works crews in Riverview and the town has their road salt supply put on reserve.
“We have managed but there have been a few times that we’ve kinda hit the panic button and them to make sure we had our salt coming,” said Nathan Orr, with Riverview Public Works.
He says in the last few weeks they’ve been struggling to get enough road salt to deal with the repeated onsets of freezing rain.
Since the Picadilly potash mine shut down in Sussex this winter, the company that supplies the town’s road salt is limiting their loads.
“They have kinda rationed us to two loads a day,” Orr said.
He says they’re managing to get the job done but have had to use reserves of sand as a back up.
This winter’s temperature fluctuations have also lead to the early onset of potholes.
“It’s like 12 degrees one day and minus 20 the next, so the potholes are forming even though the winter months.”
Bill Jonah lives just outside the Riverview town limits.
“It’s worse this year than it was last year,” Jonah said. “I expect they are going to get around pretty soon there and patch them.”
Orr says the early pothole season is creating extra work for his crews who have been busy cold patching potholes as a temporary fix.
“We’ve got crews out patching what we think are the bad ones, but with the wet weather the cold patch does not stay in the holes and it bounces back out with truck traffic.”
He says until crews can start permanent patching work sometime in May, drivers should be aware — those craters that have hit the roads already are bound to get much worse.
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