Advertisement

Snow politics: How Montreal is dealing with winter’s massive snowfall

People clear snow from around their cars on a street in Montreal. Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press

Within sight of downtown Montreal and around the corner from a popular strip mall is a giant mass — 22 football fields long, 10 storeys high — that can initially be mistaken for the brown-and-grey-coloured mountain ranges in the southwestern United States.

The mass is not rock, however, but filthy snow tainted brown by exhaust fumes, car grease and other pollutants floating around the frozen metropolis.

READ MORE: Montreal’s boosts snow-clearing budget by $5.3M to rent high-powered snowblowers

It’s one of 14 snow-dump sites dotted around the city, half of which are either full or near capacity due to the unusually high snowfall Montreal has so far received this winter.

“We’ve almost reached our average snowfall for the entire season,” said city spokesman Philippe Sabourin, who loves to talk about public works.

Story continues below advertisement

The City of Montreal had received 180 centimetres of snow as of mid-February.

READ MORE: Anjou reprimanded by Montreal for clearing streets of snow

An average winter snowfall is about 190 centimetres by the end of March.

Sabourin said Montreal has so far collected 16 million cubic metres of snow _ enough to fill 6,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

WATCH BELOW: Sky-high Montreal snow dump

Click to play video: 'Montreal snow dump piled high'
Montreal snow dump piled high

Only four times in the past 40 years has Montreal received as much snow, he added.

READ MORE: ‘What we want is to improve’: Montreal looking to make strides in snow removal

In response, the city was granted special permission from the provincial government to open two extra dump sites, one of which is located by the disused and crumbling Blue Bonnets racetrack.

Story continues below advertisement

There is no other city on earth with the same population density as Montreal that has to manage as much snow, Sabourin said.

Just talking about the snow in Montreal is a full-time job.

READ MORE: Montreal official apologizes for not launching snow removal operations sooner

Sabourin said for one TV station only, he’s often called in to talk snow early in the morning and several times throughout the day.

WATCH BELOW: Montreal looking to make snow removal improvements

Click to play video: 'Montreal looking to make snow removal improvements'
Montreal looking to make snow removal improvements

On this particular mid-February afternoon, Sabourin is pre-recording a radio interview on the subject of enraged parents who’ve witnessed snow-clearing operations outside schools during pick-up and drop-off hours.

Story continues below advertisement

“We are conducting a rigorous analysis to ensure this doesn’t continue,” Sabourin tells the radio host. “The city takes this very seriously.”

Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.

Get daily National news

Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

The politics of snow in Montreal are fierce.

READ MORE: Montreal taking heat over state of sidewalks, roads after slow snow removal

“Everyone has their own strategy, their own opinion, about snow collection,” said Sabourin.

Jean-François Parenteau, the new councillor responsible for citizen services, learned quickly how seriously Montrealers take snow removal and de-icing.

WATCH BELOW: Montreal man pranks police with snow car

Click to play video: 'Montreal man pranks police with snow car'
Montreal man pranks police with snow car

“I get messages all the time on social media, people send me pictures of the snow at their home, asking why it isn’t cleared yet,” he said in an interview.

Story continues below advertisement

One of the most stressful parts of his job is deciding whether to launch a clean-up operation when the city receives five, six or seven centimetres and climatologists are predicting the temperature will likely warm up for a bit.

READ MORE: ‘It’s substandard for sure’: frustration continues with snow removal in NDG

“Every time I say go, it’s $15 million to $20 million per cleanup,” Parenteau said.

If he sends out the crews and the snow melts, citizens are upset because he wasted money. But if he holds off, as he did several weeks ago, and the weather turns, Montrealers become incensed.

He wrongly assumed an upcoming bout of warm weather would melt a recent snowfall, and when temperatures dropped and the sidewalks turned into skating rinks, it became a multi-day scandal.

“And we’ll be better next year. But for people who aren’t solid, the job could be quite heavy.”

READ MORE: Pedestrian dies after collision with snow removal truck in NDG

Snow-clearing operations in Montreal begin with trucks blasting obnoxious horns up and down residential streets early in the morning, alerting formerly sleeping citizens to move their vehicles.

Story continues below advertisement

WATCH BELOW: Navigating Montreal city streets during snowstorm

Click to play video: 'Navigating Montreal city streets during snowstorm'
Navigating Montreal city streets during snowstorm

Roughly 3,000 workers operating 2,200 machines can be on city roads after a big snowfall, clearing and salting 6,000 kilometres of sidewalks and 4,000 kilometres of road.

Thirty per cent of Montreal’s collected snowfall gets dumped into large holes in the ground connected to the city’s sewer system, where it is treated before being released into the St. Lawrence River.

READ MORE: Residents say CDN-NDG not listening to snow removal complaints

“Before 1990 we used to dump it directly in the river,” Sabourin said.

Every snowblower is tagged with a GPS device, so the city knows where each machine is located at all times and citizens can use an application on their phone to monitor snow-clearing operations in real time.

Story continues below advertisement

READ MORE: Fluctuating temperatures claim Montreal’s natural Beaver Lake ice rink for good

“We know the volume of each truck as they enter a dump site, we know where the snow came from and so we know in real time how much snow is being collected,” said Sabourin.

“Before 2015, we used punch cards.”

WATCH BELOW: 4 major accidents during Montreal snow storm

Click to play video: '4 major accidents during Montreal snow storm'
4 major accidents during Montreal snow storm

Back at the dump site outside the strip mall, Sabourin is dwarfed by the mountain of brown, compacted snow, as city workers drive around showing off their snowblowers.

“The snow will be here until July,” he said. “Maybe August.”

Did you know?

  • Every year, Montreal uses 150,000 tonnes of a mixture of salt, sand and rocks to use as an abrasive on the road system. It is stored in 30 garages across the city.
  • The city has 14 land dump sites and 16 sites where snow is dropped directly into the sewer system. Thirty per cent of collected snowfall goes into sewers, while the rest is dumped on land.
  • Montreal usually collects about 12 million cubic metres of snow every season. So far this year it has collected 16 million cubic metres.
  • Montreal budgeted about $164 million for the 2017-18 winter for snow-clearing operations. That’s about $1 million for every one centimetre of snow collected.
  • During the biggest snowfalls, there are 3,000 workers, 2,200 machines on the road at a time, not including about 200 tow trucks.
  • For the 2016-17 season, the city estimated it collected 14 million cubic tonnes of snow, equivalent to the volume of eight Olympic Stadiums.

Sponsored content

AdChoices