Each week, City Manager Tom Aspell puts the city memo on a leash and takes it for a walk. When it won’t do its business after more than two hours outside, Aspell accidentally falls asleep and lets it loose in the woods. Thankfully it remembers its way home, so we can print it here.
Water winners
Fluoridation is a neat word
The city of Concord has been awarded a Water Fluoridation Quality Award from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Aspell writes. Nobody fluoridates quite like we do!
Fluoridation is the adjustment of fluoride in drinking water to a level that is effective for preventing tooth decay. The award recognizes those communities that achieved excellence in community water fluoridation by maintaining a consistent level of fluoridated water throughout 2012. The city will seek a grant to cover the cost of a plaque large enough to hold all of those words.
A total of 1,791 public water systems in 34 states received this award, including three in New Hampshire.
Community water fluoridation has been recognized by the CDC as one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Not on that list: whoopie pies. The CDC recommends water fluoridation as a safe, effective and inexpensive method of preventing tooth decay.
Snow on the big screen
You can watch it leave
Do you ever wonder what goes into cleaning up after a major snow storm, Aspell writes? Where does the city put all the snow that’s been removed from downtown and the narrow side streets? Did the city find the small village of people sleeping in that one snowbank before they trucked it away? How do you make eggs that aren’t runny?
In addition to plowing the roads and clearing sidewalks after a big storm, staff of the General Services Department’s highway pision conduct overnight snow removal operations beginning at 11 p.m. and work as fast and efficiently as possible to finish by 7 a.m. They also answer viewer email from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.
The city uses loaders with snow blowers attached to load the snow into dump trucks for removal. It also hires 12 contracted trucks to haul the snow to the snow dump, which is located at Terrill Park, at the corner of Old Turnpike Road and Manchester Street. That’s where you can find all sorts of sweet snow knick-knacks in the swap shop.
On average, about 5,000 cubic yards of snow can be removed each night (that’s equivalent to 1 million gallons of water). Downtown snow removal operations average 250 loads of snow, but last week’s snow removal totaled 500 loads and took two nights to remove the 26 inches of snow we received the week before. Because it was the worst.
Staff have also been removing snow from side streets that have become too narrow due to snow banks. Approximately 2,000 tons of snow have been removed to the snow dump so far this winter.
We know what you’re thinking – this is the perfect formula for a reality show! Well, you can watch a video clip of the overnight snow removal operations on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=AMb0ckNjC10. Be sure to subscribe to the YouTube page to see future videos.
