Bard College
Tier2-4: Snow and Ice Removal

Depending on the severity and the type of the winter precipitation plays a huge role in how we attack it. As a rule we do not pretreat before a storm, we do however treat shortly after the storm starts to get a brine going to lessen the possibility of the snow and or ice from sticking to the surface. If the weather event is primarily snow we do continue to remove snow as it accumulates and re apply sand and salt mixture as needed. If the precipitation is mostly freezing rain we continually apply sand and salt mixture. The sand and salt mixture we use is mixed at a ratio of 3 buckets of sand to one bucket of salt. The amount of salt added can be adjusted according to the type of weather. The salt product used is a basic deicing salt sold on state contract by New York State. We generally use in the neighborhood of 150 tons per season but this amount can fluctuate depending on the severity or the lack of.
Three are several ways to attack a storm and one would be stay on as needed to keep the walkways and roads as open as possible. The other possibility would be to start at 4 am and have the campus roads and walkways open by 9 am. Again it depends on what type of storm we are having in order to come up with a working strategy.

Walkways are treated with environmentally friendly products such as Magnesium to limit the negative impact to vegetation and also concrete surfaces. In some areas the a salt and magnesium mixture is used, mostly on paved areas.