New salt shed in place
Glace Bay facility able to stockpile product
There is now enough salt in Glace Bay to handle any weather event.
A new shed that holds upwards of 1,600 metric tons of salt will make its debut with the first snowstorm of the season forecasted for today.
”It offers us operational flexibility for the area in providing public safety for the roads … before we had a shed that only held about 400 metric tons so it was difficult to keep up with it during snowstorms,” said Robert Nearing, Cape Breton Regional Municipality public works manager in East Division.
Nearing said the salt shed is the newest in the municipality and construction was finished last spring at a cost of about $450,000, which included engineering and design.
“We are now in full swing with it,” he said, adding the old salt shed had deteriorated and wasn’t large enough.
“It was (built) right around amalgamation time and was really built just for the town of Glace Bay and didn’t look after other areas including Dominion. What we have now is probably four times the size of the one that was here.”
Nearing said they had been unable to stockpile salt and always had to have a contractor on standby.
“If we ran out we’d have to call him and try to get him here and he’d have to try to get through any road conditions and other stuff to get there,” he said.
“We didn’t have a large enough facility and sometimes we … didn’t even get a chance to put (the salt) in the shed as it went right into their trucks to go right back out on the roads.”
Nearing said roads are covered with salt prior to a snowstorm as it starts to break down any snow that falls on the road and prevents ice from forming.
The Glace Bay stockpile will also provide extra salt if for example it is needed in New Waterford.
The Glace Bay shed looks after Glace Bay, Dominion and surrounding communities, but not the roads maintained by the provincial government.
The municipality also has salt sheds in Sydney that hold about 5,000 metric tons; in North Sydney, which looks after Northside communities and holds about 1,400 metric tons; and in New Waterford where he shed holds about 350 metric tons. There is also a salt shed in Louisbourg.