The cost of repairing the county’s roads in the wake of severe weather and repeated gritting will run to an estimated €2.56 million.
While the council awaits word from the Department of Transport as to whether it will contribute towards the cost of repairing damaged roads, gritting has already cost the county €350,000 this winter.
That figure is likely to rise considerably as the gritting season does not officially end until April. During the 2008/09 season, the cost to treat scheduled roads ran to €596,761.
During the 34-day period of severe weather between December 12 and January 14, the decision to grit roads was taken on 30 days. A total of 42 gritting events took place during this period, while a normal full season would only require an average of 35 grittings.
As each gritting treatment uses 100 tonnes of salt and costs €10,300, daily decisions on whether to grit the county’s routes are not taken lightly, as senior roads engineer Michael Connolly demonstrated to councillors this week.
The decision-making process is centred around a highly technical weather information system, known as ‘IceNet’, which uses data from weather stations to decide on the necessary treatment for some 462km of Westmeath’s roads. Factors examined by a duty engineer, available 24 hours a day, include road surface temperature, road state, air temperature, wind, and dew temperature, all of which combine to give an indication of what time freezing is likely to begin.
All of the county’s motorways, national primary routes, and national secondary routes were gritted during the freezing weather conditions of recent weeks, as well as 165km of regional roads and 30km of local roads - a total length of 462km.
According to Mr Connolly, the duration and severity of the period of adverse weather presented several difficulties, including difficulty in sourcing salt to replenish stocks and damaging effects on road surfaces.
County manager Dan McLoughlin said suggestions that additional storage space for grit be made available will be investigated.
“The only reason we had difficulty with grit is that there was a substantial demand on stocks from the one source, from all over Ireland and Great Britain. We will look at putting in place capacity for additional storage, possibly in Athlone.
“The question of adding additional routes to the gritting map can be discussed. We have stipulated 462km, which is the same amount that Meath County Council covers and is well above average - Longford County Council puts out 30 tonnes per night whereas we put out 100.”
He added that while suggestions from councillors that gravel be left in rural lay-bys for locals to use might merit discussion, the use of grit without salt is not an ideal solution.
“Grit alone won’t thaw ice and is very messy. It may have certain value on rural routes, but it can leave heavily-used roads in an awful state,” he said.
