Mystery of the giant snow pile revealed
Where's a good place to dump tons of snow? The corner of Broad Street and Washington Avenue. Which on Wednesday was a slushy South Philadelphia locale, though perhaps not the most stealthy setting for a city administration that's sought to stay silent about its stash.
Where's a good place to dump tons of snow?
The corner of Broad Street and Washington Avenue.
Which on Wednesday was a slushy South Philadelphia locale, though perhaps not the most stealthy setting for a city administration that's sought to stay silent about its stash.
As city plows labored to clear miles of streets Monday, Clarena Tolson, the deputy managing director for infrastructure and transportation, spoke to reporters about what the city does with all the snow it collects:
She wasn't telling - or at least not telling where it went.
The snow is picked up, transported, and then dumped at undisclosed, city-owned locations, she said. "If we say where," Tolson said, "private companies will go and use them."
A Kenney administration representative said snow-dumping sites are distributed throughout the city, all of them on public property. The specific locations are not disclosed for safety and logistical reasons - and the city didn't want private companies dumping snow at these spots.
An official with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. (PIDC) confirmed that the giant pile at Broad and Washington was, in fact, the city's snow.
Big snow means big disposal problems.
Amid a terrible storm in 2003, the city did everything it could to get rid of the stuff. It trucked tons of snow to Fairmount Park, lugged it to an abandoned air strip, dumped it on vacant lots, and even turned it to water in snow-melting machines.
Finally, running out of places to put those white mountains, the city shoved the snow into the Schuylkill - 400,000 pounds, containing not only road salt but a toxic mix of antifreeze, oil, gasoline, brake fluid, and other substances from the streets.
Environmentalists feared waterways and marine life would be damaged.
This winter, though, the snow has stayed on land.
The lot at Broad and Washington, which sits kitty-corner from the Rock School for Dance Education, is about the size of a football field.
City Revenue Department records show the site is owned by the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID). PAID is managed by the PIDC, a nonprofit partnership between the city and the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
Records list the location as vacant industrial land. It sold in 1998 for $1,321,000 and today is valued at $3.1 million.
Workers handling snow at the site Tuesday declared it "full" and said snow was being shipped to another undisclosed location - on Passyunk Avenue.
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Staff writer Jacob Adelman contributed to this article.