The city is also considering buying a $380,000 vehicle that melts snow as soon as it’s collected on the street — kind of a cross between a dump truck and a gigantic oven. But even after a demonstration of one such vehicle in March, the Department of Public Works is skeptical.
“The cost of using heating oil to melt snow is getting prohibitive,” Early says. In any case, it’s unlikely that such a vehicle would be able to handle all of the city’s snow: “Portland will continue to haul snow out to outer Congress for the foreseeable future,” he says.
Either alternative would require Portland to spend some more money, burn some more fuel, and inject some more fine particulates from city trucks' exhaust into local snowbanks. But, on the other hand, the annual spring cleaning of a winter’s worth of pollution will present less of a hazard once it’s confined to a protected site on the edge of the city.
For all of its problems, though, the Bayside glacier is at least impressive. It elevates street runoff up into our skyline in a huge, hulking monument — a melting apotheosis of stormwater. The spectacle is worth watching, while it lasts.
Christian McNeil can be reached at portland-feedback@thephoenix.com.
