Where Does All The City Snow Go?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The thousands of people will make their way to downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul this weekend might be surprised at how little snow is on the ground. It was only Monday that 12 inches fell.
That has Bernadette from Minneapolis wanting to know: Where does all the city snow go? Good Question.
"I'm not going to tell you," says Mike Kennedy, director of snow operations for the City of Minneapolis. "I say that jokingly."
In most of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the snow on the city streets are just plowed to the sides. But, in the downtown areas, the cities will truck snow to locations they'd rather not share.
"We don't take it all over the city. We have a site," says Kennedy. "Because it's an open site and because it's not our property, we don't want to tell people where it is because we do have a problem with midnight dumpers."
The City of Minneapolis trucks away the snow along downtown bus routes, city buildings, the county courthouse, the Convention Center and Target Center.
During the Super Bowl, they will also remove snow near event spaces, like U.S. Bank Stadium, the Armory and the Stadium's security perimeter. Kennedy says the Super Bowl Host Committee reimburses the city for the added cost.
Some business owners will privately contract for the snow to be removed from their premises. The City of Minneapolis used to remove snow from Nicollet Mall, but the Downtown Improvement Council took over that job 10 years ago.
According to Steve Cramer, head of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, property owners and businesses along Nicollet Mall – from Grant to Washington – pay for all the snow and ice to be removed. Kramer says that snow is then trucked to a location near Highway 280.
The snow is dirty. Kennedy says when a five-gallon bucket of that street snow melts each spring, they're left with about a foot of sludge and debris. The area where the snow is stored must be cleaned when the snow melts each spring.
