Denver officials hope to triple the rate of ice removal from neighborhood streets, tapping $5 million from a contingency fund for the cause.
The city has already spent $8 million on road-clearing since a pair of late-December storms.
The money set aside Tuesday is less than estimates last week that ranged from $8 million to $10 million in additional funds to clear a path down each ice-choked street. At the time, city officials estimated that 7,000 of the city’s 14,000 blocks remained ice-covered.
Mayor John Hickenlooper said warm weather this week should allow streets to be cleared for less than the $10 million “worst-case-scenario.”
The money will be used to pay private contractors using road-building equipment. The effort will increase from 100 to 300 the number of blocks that are cleared each day.
City officials said they have about 6,000 city blocks yet to clear.
“We know you are frustrated with the snow removal situation,” Public Works manager Bill Vidal told the City Council. “We’ve got to remind you these are incredibly unusual circumstances.”
Vidal said the city has not spent more than $3 million a year on snow removal in the past decade. But as the city enters its seventh week with icy streets, Denver officials said this kind of storm is exactly why the city keeps a contingency fund.
“This is a contingency event,” Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz said. “The one contract you are not going to see … is a contract with Mother Nature guaranteeing 10 days of above-average weather to melt this. So I think at least we are taking action.”
The city has authorized Parsons, its regular road-building contractor, to use the contingency money to hire 6 additional subcontractors for street-clearing. Four previously hired subcontractors will continue to operate.
In all, nearly 300 heavy-equipment vehicles will be in Denver neighborhoods by the end of the week, said Ann Williams, Public Works spokeswoman. That is about twice the number the city had been using.
The contracts are on a week-to-week basis, and Vidal said if the city is able to clear the ice more quickly than expected, the remaining money can be allocated to other projects with Parsons.
More than likely, it would go to patch what Dan Roberts, Public Works director of street maintenance, called a “huge pothole challenge.”
“We’ve got more potholes,” he said, “than frankly I’ve ever seen.”
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 303-954-1657 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
Costs hammer cities
The $8 million Denver has spent on snow and ice removal and the additional $5 million set aside Tuesday make it the metro-area leader in terms of spending for street clearing.
The unseasonable winter weather has hit other government budgets hard.
Andrew Barth, the city of Boulder’s public works spokesman, said $342,000 has been spent this season on snow removal – more than half of the $632,480 budgeted for this year.
Aurora spent $5.2 million on snow and ice removal from Dec. 20 to Jan. 19. Golden spent $267,970 in the same period.
Jefferson County has spent $2.7 million clearing the snow, and Golden spent $267,970 during that time.
