MINOT – Road Manager Arlan Saunders told selectmen Monday night that he would like to have calcium pre-wet systems installed on two town trucks to save money.
“Right now, using calcium chloride, we’re seeing a savings of 25 to 30 percent. With a pre-wet system, we could be looking at 40 percent savings,” Saunders said.
Saunders explained that the calcium chloride (activates) the road salt, making it stickier and keeping the sand and salt on the road longer.
“MDOT estimates that when you put down plain sand and salt and just 10 cars go by, you can have 78 percent of it blown into the ditch,” Saunders said.
The intent, he pointed out, is to put down as little material as possible and to keep that on the road for as long as possible. The savings, Saunders added, go beyond just the cost for materials and include reducing the need to sweep roads in the spring and not having to clean out ditches as often.
Referring to some criticism he has received concerning the number of passes the plow crews make up and down the road during storms, Saunders noted that the town’s crew is actually often off the road sooner than those in neighboring towns and the roads are clearer and safer.
“Our guys have done a good job. I’ll hold to my guns on what we do,” he said.
Saunders also said he expects to come in with a 2006 Highway Department budget that is $38,000 less than this year’s.
Selectmen said they intended to meet with the town’s Budget Committee on Jan. 5 to go over budget requests for the town office, the Fire and Rescue Department and the Highway Department.
Town Administrator Rhonda Irish reported she and Fire Chief Steve French attended a meeting with officials from Mechanic Falls and Poland to discuss what needs to be done to ensure that the three towns are prepared to meet their residents’ needs in times of emergency.
Irish noted that the three towns lack a proper emergency shelter.
French pointed out that the Poland Community School has some ability to function without reliance on the power grid but that there are no generators capable of keeping the Minot Consolidated School, Mechanic Falls’ Elm Street School or the Poland Regional High School open as viable shelters.
“In the 1998 ice storm, we had people coming here to the town office asking, Where do we go?’ and the answer sadly was, I don’t know,'” French said.
Selectman Eda Tripp recalled that a request for a generator to power the Minot Consolidated School was rejected at a town meeting not long after the ice storm. She suggested that the matter ought to be revisited, perhaps with a plan for the three towns to share a mobile high-capacity generator.
In light of the fact that the New Year’s Day legal holiday will be observed Jan. 2, selectmen announced that their next meeting will be Jan. 3.
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