Highway Department getting 2 new trucks
HURLEY, N.Y. » The Town Board has approved spending about $212,000 to buy two trucks for the town Highway Department.
Highway Superintendent Michael Shultis said the new trucks are needed because of rust damage to old ones. He said the damage is caused by salt that can’t be washed off the vehicles during the winter because the highway garage on Dug Hill Road lacks the needed drainage.
“Unfortunately, because we don’t have a wash bay at our facility because of our proximity to the Ashokan Reservoir, we can’t we can’t wash our trucks off with any kind of soap or spray or anything,” he said.
The highway garage, at 1035 Dug Hill Road, is just over half a mile from the edge of the reservoir and is subject to watershed-related restrictions.
“We can only use water [to wash the trucks], and in the wintertime you can’t use water outside because it freezes,” Shultis said. “So our trucks are very susceptible to the rusting from the salts on the roads and
the calcium brines that the state highways are soaked with.”
The Town Board approved spending $48,827.51 for a 2021 Ford F55 dump truck and $163,634.38 for a 2021 International dump truck with snow-plowing equipment.
C ou nc i l man Pe t e r Humphries said replacing
other trucks should be considered before any of them “get in a really bad accident [as a result of damage] and hurt either one of our employees or hurt other people on the road.”
Councilwoman Melinda McKnight suggested the Highway Department look into alternative detergents that are permitted under
watershed regulations.
“They do make now plant-based, environmentally friendly soaps and detergents,” she said. “Maybe get with DEP (the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which operated the reservoir) and see if they have an approved list of what they would accept.”