Major U.S. cities have been smashed with feet of snow, and with bitterly cold temperatures preventing any widespread melting, where does all that road-blocking snow go?
It's important to remember that it's not the actual snow that is the problem,
but what's in the snow that has become a pollution nightmare in recent
years.
Snow is not legally allowed to be dumped in rivers, lakes, ponds or any other
body of water.
Most municipalities outlawed this practice during the environmental movement of
the late 1980s.
If snow is disposed of in fresh water, these bodies can be polluted with road
salt and other harsh snow removal chemicals.
These chemicals have proven to be extremely toxic to any fish and aquatics life
residing in waters.
Even sand, which seems to be a positive alternative to chemicals, is dangerous
if dumped along with snow into fresh water.
Sand washed into waterways has the potential to gather into sand bars, or even
fill existing wetlands and ponds.
Drinking water supplies can be impacted by contamination resulting from toxic
snow-removal chemicals.
Snow dumped into water bodies can also cause ice dams, which can lead to major
flooding if left to build.
While it may seem like a good idea to dispose of snow into storm drains, this
is very dangerous because snow-melt sediment can block drains, contributing to
localized flooding.
However, depending on the city, excessive snow can be hauled away to designated
areas, including parking lots and fields.
These areas must be at least 50 feet away from any water bodies to create a
buffer between the disposal site and any body of water.
When the weather breaks, any snow-melt debris should be properly disposed of
and cleared completely from the site.
Among the hardest hit, the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan area canceled work
for all federal employees and many children stayed home from school Monday.
Heavy snow and fallen limbs left over 150,000 without power in Maryland during
the height of the storm.
Several airports in the mid-Atlantic are beginning to reopen after virtually
all flights were canceled through Sunday. Amtrak is still operating on a
modified schedule south of Washington, D.C.
The region is set to be pummeled again with another strong system midweek,
which could bring as much as a foot of snow to the big cities.
This storm, now affecting the Midwest, is set to impact over 25 major cities,
including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas.
Story by AccuWeather.com's Carly Porter.
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