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DPW To Start Using Brine On Roads

Mark Roetzer, acting director of public works, presents the department’s budget to the city council. Screenshot courtesy of the city of Jamestown’s website

The switch to brine to help clear city roads is under way.

The move was discussed earlier this week as Mark Schlemmer, who runs the city DPW streets department, and Mark Roetzer, acting city public works director, discussed the DPW’s 2025 budget with council members.

Schlemmer discussed brine in response to a question from council members about the average amount of salt used on the roads last year. Schlemmer said on average the department uses 5,000 tons or more of salt per year. The council also asked about the brine system.

“The brine system has been installed and we’ve just got our initial start up training on it,” Schlemmer said. “We still have a few more things we need to do for the vehicles, the trucks, to get them ready. We’re hoping that is going to take place in the next month or so.”

Councilman Russell Bonfiglio, R-At Large, asked about the type of brine the city plans on using, saying that the kind used by the county last year did not work. Schlemmer said that the city’s is a completely different brand, with exactly the target of 23% salinity in the brine. Another question was raised about salt purchasing and if it will go with the county following a passed resolution to have most of the city’s purchasing go with the county.

“So, for years our salt has been off of the New York State OGS system,” Schlemmer said. “The county also uses that system.”

Mark Roetzer, acting director of public works, then talked about a new account in the budget created last year to track spending for the annual leaf collection that happens in the city. Leaf collection this year begins Nov 4, and much of the account, Roetzer said, is the same as the account for snow and ice.

“The salaries you see come out of either fleet or street maintenance for this,” Roetzer said. “There’s a small equipment line item, which we use every year to replace walk-behind and backpack leaf blowers, and then rakes as well. We spend hundreds of dollars on rakes.”

Also included in the budget for the DPW is electric and street lights, building maintenance in the city, the summer youth employment program and sliplining, which is something Roetzer said is being done for the first time this year but that they would like to do every year.

“It’s best where we have old corrugated metal pipe that’s in the road and has been in the road for 40 years at this point,” Roetzer said. “What happens with that pipe is as the water runs over it, it rusts along the bottom and then the bottom disappears and then the pipe collapses and you have a sinkhole, which is what happened over by the school a few months ago. There was just all of a sudden a hole in the middle of the road. It happened up on Foote as well.”

Roetzer explained that sliplining puts a balloon in the hole with the pipe, which is then inflated, heated up, and serves as a new pipe. Roetzer added that it is much cheaper and faster than digging. Labor is contracted out for the sliplining process.

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