Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

37° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Evanston prepares for cold weather with new snow-clearing machine

This winter, Northwestern party animals may meet a new night crawler. Starting in December, a 21-foot long, 12-foot high snow-melting machine will prowl the main thoroughfares after major snowstorms.

During the day after a snowfall, streets are cleared but mounds of plowed snow remain.

At night, Evanston Streets and Sanitation workers will park the Trecan 40-PD Snowmelter near sewer openings, pack it with snow, and let the hulking yellow apparatus shoot out 160 gallons a minute of melted snow. The next morning, businesses will have space for customers to park and walk in the daytime.

Zeltee Edwards Jr., superintendent of Streets and Sanitation in Evanston, said the machine was necessary because the old method of hauling snow away to empty parking lots is no longer possible.

“They’ve had so many housing projects and new businesses coming into town that we don’t have anywhere to dump snow anymore,” he said.

Although winter barely has bared its teeth, Evanston has leased the melter, with an option to purchase it, for $15,000 per month for four months beginning Dec. 1. If the machine is cost-effective, the city may buy it for $220,000.

The massive melter is attached with a trailer hitch to other trucks. A large tank is filled halfway with water, which is heated by a furnace. Snow is dumped into the tank with front-end loaders, which are metal troughs that scoop up snow, and then the tank can be tilted and emptied. With dramatic belches of vapor, the melter vaporizes 40 tons of snow per hour, according to the Web site of Trecan, which manufactures the melter.

Fears that the machine will overload sewers with its melted snow have little basis, Edwards said.

“The sewer system is designed for heavy rains,” Edwards said. “The snow we’ll be putting in the sewers won’t even be a light rain.”

Edwards said the department staff has begun and will continue training through the end of November. Professionals from Steve’s Equipment Service in West Chicago, which leased the machine, will accompany the work crews on their first night using the snowmelter.

Evanston is alone in its use of the snowmelter — nearby suburbs of Niles and Skokie currently have no similar machine.

“When we haul our snow … we have places to stockpile it,” said Jerry Burke, superintendent of the streets and alleys division for the Village of Skokie.

Reach Daniella Cheslow at [email protected]

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
Evanston prepares for cold weather with new snow-clearing machine