County Road Crews Gear Up for Winter
The Butler County Engineer’s Office is pleased to report that its Annual Snow Plow ROADeo will take place in full force on Thursday morning, October 27, 2022. After the last two pandemic years of canceling and scaling down this important public safety training event, the BCEO will provide an excellent experience for a dozen or more crews to prepare for their winter snow plow routes.
The ROADeo is a yearly refresher course on snow plow driver safety, as well as an opportunity for area townships and municipalities to come together to participate in friendly competitions on the BCEO grounds. Drivers will maneuver through an obstacle course designed to simulate actual winter road situations, each vying for the best time and most accurate truck maneuvers. Additionally, an Equipment ROADeo will occur in the truck bay, and operators will compete using an excavator.
NEW this year by the BCEO salt domes is a “calibration cruise-in” hosted by the Southwest Ohio APWA for snow trucks to be calibrated with the correct amount of salt and liquid. Fifteen vendors will also be on-site with equipment and other snow and ice operations-related gear.
Before the activities on Thursday, the drivers will begin with classroom training from BCEO Operations Deputy Scott Bressler and CDL Field Representative Jim Warner from the Ohio Department of Public Safety. BCEO snow plow crews will gather a day early for a small training session of their own, then clean and prepare their trucks with salt box and plow installations. Final preparations will be to refamiliarize themselves with their routes or learn about new routes by performing dry runs.
The BCEO will begin this winter season with 13,000 tons of salt stored in two barns, each with a capacity of 6,500 tons. This year the BCEO awarded its salt contract for the upcoming winter season to Morton Salt, which submitted a low bid and fixed rate of $85.92 per ton (dumped), nearly ten dollars more per ton than in 2021. BCEO snowfighters will be ready with sixteen snow and ice control routes and two 12-hour shifts of 19 employees to ensure that every county road is treated quickly and efficiently to keep motorists safe this winter.
