St. Louis County Spends Over 3 Million on New Snow Plows

ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Winters in the Northland can be anything except, “Minnesota nice.” When snow falls and pavement turns to ice, plows are some of the first vehicles to drive on the roads.

St. Louis County is already prepping for snow plow season.

Every year, the county replaces the 10 oldest plows with new ones, and three out of the 10 have arrived in Virginia.

Public Works Fleet and Property Manager, Chad Skelton, explained that the plows are advanced and the crew is hard at work, training to use them.

“Our level of service that we’ve committed to our tax payers is to be able to plow each road in 8 hours of a snow storm. So these trucks allow us the reliability, the confidence, and the technology to be able to plow the roads fast so people can still get out to work, school, and the hospital in a safe way,” said Skelton.

One of the biggest changes to the new plows starts in the brine tank.

The tank is located in the box of the truck, storing and supplying salt for the roads.

While it used to lift up like a dump truck, nearly blocking the vision of drivers, it’s been redesigned.

The salt is now mixed with a liquid material, allowing it to slide smoothly down an exit ramp.

“Previous trucks utilized granulated material like salt/sand basically, and with the new environmental regulations and new processes in keeping roads safe, everything’s migrating towards liquid chemical deicers.”

The plows are custom made for St. louis county.

These are the first plows the county has bought with onboard cameras.

The cameras are located on the rearview mirrors, the brine tank, and on the wings of the plow.

New blizzard lights have also been tacked on to navigate white out conditions.

“We work very closely with our employees and our equipment operators and we listened to them on what issues they were having with our old trucks. We believe that we have the truck now that’s going to do what they want.”

Like any ride, it’s not cheap.

The plows cost nearly $320 thousand dollars a piece.

“The County Administration and the County Board has supported Public Works very well to allow us to have a purchasing program to keep new trucks ad safe trucks for our employees.”

St. Louis County has a flurry of 116 plows ready for the winter, including the three out of 10 new ones onsite.

The remaining seven plows are expected to arrive before the first snowfall.