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Mr. Luddite

On 3/19/2015 10:32 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 19 Mar 2015 09:25:50 -0400, Justan Olphart
wrote:

On 3/19/2015 8:55 AM, True North wrote:

On Wed, 18 Mar 2015 15:30:16 -0400, John H.
wrote:
- show quoted text -
"When I lived in places with sidewalks, DC and close in PG county there
was an ordinance that you had to shovel the sidewalk in front of your
house. I am not sure I ever saw anyone getting in trouble for not
doing it but it was the law. Most people either did it themselves, had
a kid do it or a neighbor pitched in and did it. These were small city
lots so it was not a lot of sidewalk to clear.
When I got farther in the country, there were no sidewalks and it was
a moot point."

Exactly the way it was here for as long as I remember. Then last year, with out consulting the taxpayers, the city decided to extend sidewalk snow removal to the old original part of Halifax and charge us. The new service is dismal. The little Bobcats tore up a lot grass and damaged stone walls, etc.
They changed this year to little John Deere tractors with the articulating plows but were so slow getting around that the snow/freezing rain/flash freeze/snow proved to be impossible to overcome.
Anyway everyone's been resentful since the majority of us did a much better job ourselves. Still waiting for the sidewalk plows to show up here. I think they gave up and conceded defeat.
Funny, on a local history blog they showed and old truck being hand loaded by a gang of men with shovels.
That brings up another problem...the city used to dump the snow into the harbour but the federal gov't decided to outlaw that.
Crazy thing is the dept of defense and the port authority still do it but the city can't. Special permission was granted for a one time occasion after 'White Juan' back in February 2004.

What's wrong with dumping snow into a cesspool?

I think that is just the government giving the illusion of doing
something. Street runoff ends up in the rivers anyway unless you have
some kind of storm drain system different than 99.99% of the country
and that is what they are worried about with the snow.
They just don't want to be as visible as dump trucks dumping the salt,
lead and trash laden snow in the water. Let it run down the storm
drain and "disappear" safely.
.
It is sort of like the Redd Foxx joke about ****ing in the pool.
"Everybody ****es in the pool" ... "But not from the diving board"

I disagree. If it were allowed it would happen on a regular basis after
every snowfall. The prohibition is designed to prevent the regular
contamination of rivers, harbors and coastal oceans with chemicals,
oils, etc. In emergency situations, like what occurred in this area
during February a temporary waiver of the prohibition can be obtained.

Normal drainage through storm drains is a slower process that doesn't
suddenly whack the ecosystem like regular dumping of hundreds of truck
loads of snow, salt, chemicals, oil and other contaminates would.