Answers are fewer for snow disposal

In Chicago, they melt it. In Philadelphia, they pile it in stadium lots. In Cambridge, they leave it on the edge of the street. In Boston, they truck it to "snow farms."

The winter storm that socked Massachusetts cities and towns this past weekend poses one of the toughest problems for public works crews. And there's no easy fix when a city is looking to clear hundreds of tons of snow.

"When I first came here 35 years ago, we just dumped all the snow in the harbor," said Joseph F. Casazza, Boston's commissioner of public works. But after a multi-million dollar harbor cleanup, a host of new environmental rules and a heightened awareness of just how filthy urban snow is, that option is gone.

"Downtown Boston's snow is not fit to even think of dumping in the harbor," Casazza said.

Instead, Boston relies on "snow farms," plots of land distant from the water supply, where snow can be piled after being removed from neighborhoods too cramped for snowbanks. Last night, Boston crews began trucking tons of snow to a site on American Legion Highway near the Dorchester-Roslindale line.

Federal and state regulations now tightly regulate snow disposal. Plowed snow, contaminated with road salt, sand, litter, oil, and chemicals from paving materials, can kill wildlife and ruin water supplies, according to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.

"We spent millions cleaning up waterways and the harbor, so you don't want to dump contaminated snow there," said Joe Ferson, a DEP spokesman.

So communities that want to dump snow have to find snow fields far from wells, rivers, and wetlands.

Some, like Framingham, have essentially given up. The city used to truck snow to a field on the Sherborn line, but after years of complaints about snow salt in Sherborn's water supply, the practice was ended. "We'll be leaving a lot of snow in our central business district," said Town Manager George P. King.

Cambridge removes some snow to an undeveloped site near the Museum of Science, but for the most part eschews the costly process. "We do not have space," said Lisa Peterson, commissioner of the city's Department of Public Works. "We're not going to put it in parks. For the most part, we leave it on the street."

In a declared emergency, cities can still dump snow into the ocean if they notify environmental officials. So far, however, none of the snow-swamped communities in Massachusetts have done so. "There's all kinds of stuff in that snow. It's not just lovely, soft snow," said Jamie Marsh, a spokesman for the mayor's office in Lynn, one of the hardest-hit communities in Eastern Massachusetts.

Lynn has little open space and most of the city's streets are too narrow for crews to plow snow to one side. So yesterday morning General Electric allowed the city to convert an unused 60-acre downtown lot into a temporary snowfield, Marsh said.

If there's nowhere to put it, there's always the option of melting it. To clear the runways at Logan Airport, the Massachusetts Port Authority uses four portable machines capable of melting 140 tons of snow per hour and eight stationary machines that can melt 80 tons of snow per hour. The melted snow runs through filters to remove impurities before it is drained, said Phil Orlandella, Massport spokesman.

In 1999, Chicago spent about $1.8 million for three portable snow-melting machines. But the devices run on expensive high-octane jet fuel, so the city only uses them when absolutely necessary.

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.