The Greenfield Department of Public Works has made the decision to not street sweep several outlining roads this year. Roads such as Leyden Road have no curbing and limited drainage. The materials on these roads are washed out during spring rains and the benefits of a sweeper are very limited on these roads. We have stopped placing 500-plus tons of sand for the winter operations onto the roadways.
By pre-treating the roads with salt we are using less salt and absolutely no sand. The salt dissolves in the snow, ice and rain and is not left on the roads after April.
This is a change unlike past years when the DPW did use sand and the roadways were covered with sand at the end of the winter season. It is safe to say that we are 500 tons cleaner by not using sand.
The street sweeping contract was reduced by 25 percent. These savings were used to clean up an area in Murphy Park in which we had a tub type grinder chip all of the brush and trees that had been placed there over the last 10 years. Both the changes in winter operations and the reduction in street sweeping are intended to save the taxpayers money and improve services.
Donald Ouellette
DPW director
Greenfield