The Municipal Services Committee met 01/24/2022. In addition to the report on the annual update to the city’s 5-Year Bike Lane and Trail Plan, the committee received a couple updates on some Department of Public Work’s functions, the city’s salt usage history and the new hours for the yard site. While neither of these are sexy, they do demonstrate some of the basic day to day things that city staff work on. Additionally, the salt usage history discussion may hold at least some slight interest to those who care about environmentalism issues.
Director of Public Works Paula Vandehey shared a graph of Appleton’s salt usage history from the year 2000 up through 2021. Although the usage did go up and down over the years, the overall trendline moved downward. She said that was due to intentional operational steps they had taken over the years. They had added calibrated salt spreaders. They know how much salt is being spread on the roads. They do pre-wetting to make the salt more effective so we can use less of it. They only salt residential streets under certain conditions.
Alderperson Brad Firkus (District 3) said that was a good trend to see. He said that he had talked to her in the past about alternatives to salt such as beet juice that some other communities are trying, and that, at the time, she had indicated that the availability in our area in terms of the quantities Appleton would need did not make those viable options. He asked if that was still true at this point.
Director Vandehey said that Deputy Director Nathan Loper and his staff were always looking at different materials.
She stated, “I think communities that used beet juice and feel that it’s effective might be because they have a beet juice plant in their community…. We have not seen it be any more effective than salt.” It didn’t make sense for Appleton to truck beet juice in to use.
Deputy Director Loper said that they continue to look at different products, but he agreed with Director Vandehey that product availability was the number one issue. Appleton has a large shed that it stores its dry salt in. They also have a couple salt brine tanks. During almost every winter store they have to refill those large tanks because they don’t have the needed capacity. He noted that, thankfully, Appleton gets its brine from Outagamie County which is just a mile or two down the road, so things couldn’t be more logistically convenient unless Appleton had its own brine maker, which we may need down the road.
If they moved to beet juice, however, they would have to have some huge tanks and still need to add it to the salt.
He noted that they were looking at a product that we may supplement with when Appleton experiences really cold snaps. Instead of putting down stone chips and sand, there are a couple of products on the market that help lower the freeze point. They are, however extremely expensive so would probably only be used in major intersections where the city current uses sand and stone chips. He said that 98% of communities are doing what Appleton is doing and there are very few who are trying out some of these other products unless those products. Unless those products are manufactured close by, they aren’t that practical to use.
Director Vandehey also reviewed the modified Yard Waste Site hours and asked Deputy Director Loper to talk about why they were making this change.
He said that in the fall, once September has passed, daylight hours start decreasing very quickly especially once the time change hits. It reaches a point where it is dark for the last hour or two that they are open, but not a lot of customers come in during that time. Additionally, he said that they had been receiving feedback from customers who wished that the sites were open earlier, but they don’t have the staff to be open more than 10 hours a day. They thought this change in hours would be a good solution.
They also thought it might improve customer and employee safety because they wouldn’t have customers backing up trailers and trucks in the dark or employees pushing up piles with the front-end loader in the dark.
They had initially considered just adjusting the hours in the fall but were worried that that it might get confusing having multiple sets of hours, so they decided to keep it simple.
Alderperson Joe Martin (District 4) applauded their work. Somewhat tangentially to the yard waste site discussion, he said that a lot of people in his neighborhood had received notices about placing leaves on the terrace instead of in the street. He wondered if the city was going to be sending out flyers or contacting residents in some way about changes in yard waste collection. He did not think they residents understood what the changes were.
Deputy Director Loper said that right now they were updating the Public Works Guide and as they did that, they were clearing up space that might give more room to explain some of the changes that were going to take effect. The leaf collection by vacuum truck was going to happen in a phased manner. They would be providing that information in the Public Works Guide, and the city’s Communication Coordinator Sheng Riechers had already created some videos that they would be putting out on social media along with some info graphics. They also hoped that they could utilize the alderpersons to spread the word within their districts.
He suggested that right now everyone was thinking about snow and not thinking about leaves, but he expected they’d start talking about in more in the coming months and then get aggressive with communication toward the end of summer.
He did note that, although they were trying to avoid putting leaves in the street due to stormwater issues, the vacuum could still collect them from the street if residents got confused and didn’t put them in the terrace.
Alderperson Martin applauded this change and the direction the city was moving in. Even though the change had been forced upon the city, he thought overall it was going to be a win-win situation.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=922394&GUID=E81A6D7F-2946-47B6-9BE7-69850ED8D892
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