By Mark DeVolder
Los Alamos

I have been manually shoveling snow for years. There have been a number of problems with shoveling snow. It wears me out and is hard on my body. I park my vehicles on the street. I spend a great amount of time (hours) clearing away the snow on the street so that my vehicles can be moved with losing traction, tearing up mechanical parts on the vehicles, etc. Then, the Los Alamos County snow plows come along during initial and / or “mop-up” plowing efforts and spray snow back under and against my vehicles (in seconds).

I have repeatedly contacted the County about this issue, and I understand their position on the plowing effort. I also understand it is costly if the County has to haul snow away and dump it somewhere else. However, nothing has alleviated the misery I routinely go through in the winter months until now.

For some strange reason, I began to do things differently two snowfalls ago. After all, Los Alamos is where discoveries are made.

I used to shovel snow into a berm parallel to my vehicles on the street (which might also have prevented other vehicles from smashing into my vehicles). This strategy did not work. The County came along and blasted the snow back under and against my vehicles. I tried carrying snow from the street and dumping it on my property. This was a better solution. However, the plows came along and blasted snow under and against my vehicles from the opposite side of the street (south side) during mop-up plowing efforts. I was told that the County was trying to get the snow into the middle of the street and away from the shaded south side of the street. The practice allows the snow to melt. Unfortunately, it puts snow out in the middle of the street and makes it difficult to drive. I also noticed that neighbors hand-shovel snow and use snow blowers to move snow out into the street. There are also rouge snow plowing activities.

This can leave ragged, uneven patches of snow here and there on the street. This also creates difficult driving conditions.

What I started to do was make 2-foot wide x 1-foot high snow berms perpendicular to the flow of traffic.

The berms are located about 20 feet apart. The snow between the berms is scraped down to pavement level. I also tend to push the snow into the berms instead of carrying it.

Initially, I was concerned that this might impede vehicular traffic. However, vehicles of varying sizes promptly blasted through the berms like they were not even there. One of the vehicles was an LAPD sedan. The vehicles tend to pack down the snow. I fill up the tire vehicle tire tracks with more snow which promptly gets packed down by more vehicular traffic. Therefore, I am not creating a nuisance for other drivers.

When I tried driving my truck over one of the berms I shoveled, I found it was like a boat going over a wave in the sea. I also think that some drivers might get a malicious, child-like pleasure from blasting through the berms. The bottom line, it can be fun for drivers, too.

I found that when the County plows into the berms they blast a portion of the snow off to the side of the road. On the return trip, the plows throw less snow under and against my vehicles. The small amount of snow (sometimes ice) which does end up under or against my vehicles is much easier to clean up during the initial and / or mop-up plowing efforts.

I still have some concerns about what to do when Los Alamos gets a really heavy snowfall. A potential strategy is to create more berms (perhaps 10 feet apart), but keep them as far apart as possible. In some sense, it might be like driving on a washboard road.

I am not a life-long resident of Los Alamos. Perhaps someone else has some better ideas of how to address the snow shoveling issue.