No Snow, No Work Mild winter provides less income for region’s plow truck operators

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The winter’s mild temperatures and below-average snowfall may be good news for folks who are worried about their heating bills, but snowplow drivers around the state aren’t celebrating.

“It hurts,” Linda Dall of Orono said recently about the drift drought and its effect on her family plowing business. “It’s our play money. This year we were putting it away because we wanted to buy a little bit of land, but now it might take a little bit longer.”

Dall and her husband, Harold Dall, have been plowing local driveways for about five years. It’s a sideline business, and they usually use the income for “extra entertainment,” she said, such as taking their grandchildren to Florida.

Not this year.

In a normal winter, the Bangor area will receive 53.3 inches of snow, National Weather Service officials said, and this winter has been far from normal.

As of March 5, the snowfall tally was just 34.8 inches. March usually provides the area with about 11 inches of snow, but no big storms are forecast in the next few days, according to meteorologist Duane Wolfe of the Caribou field station.

“Normally, most of the snowfall will occur in December, January and February, with the highest amount in January,” he said. “A lot of the systems have just passed south of us. They’ve had more snowfall down in Massachusetts than we’ve had up here. Also we’ve had some systems that have brought some warm air up – we’ve had a mixture of rain and snow, rather than just snow.”

With an unusual winter that roared in on waves of rain and may be creeping out like the proverbial lamb, the state’s legions of plow drivers are feeling the pinch.

“It’s an off year,” 20-year plowing veteran David Bowden of Bar Harbor said last month. “It’s just so different from year to year. You wake up and you see what snow’s on the ground, and you go to work or you don’t go to work.”

In a state that bustles with seasonal economies such as Christmas wreath making and blueberry raking, snowplowing may be the most fickle to its practitioners.

In December and January, Bowden said that there were only three plowable storms.

“In a normal winter, on average I would say I have between 12 and 15,” he said. “I would like to see, hopefully, an average winter … If we have another 10 storms, it would probably be all right.”

When the snow does fall, it can take Bowden more than a day to clear it off the 40-plus driveways and private roads that he maintains.

“A couple winters ago we had storms that were back to back,” he said. “I was 35 hours straight in the truck.”

For his efforts, he charges an average of $20-$25 per driveway to plow and another $20-$25 to sand. The money can add up.

“Depending on the number of customers and plowable storms, a person could take in anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 bucks,” he said. “It all depends.”

The numbers are as variable as the winter weather. Part-time plowman Kyle Johnson of Bar Harbor said that some drivers will take on 50 or 60 driveways to make from $25,000 to $30,000.

“If you want to make any money you’re looking at 25, 30 driveways at least,” he said. “Years in the past, people who come into this business buy a new truck and think they’re going to make their payments.”

Equipment can add up. It can cost $2,000-$3,000 for a “decent plow,” Johnson said, another $2,000 for a sander and $20,000 for the truck. Between high costs, hard work and early rising on snowy mornings, plowing is not an easy line of work.

“I get up at 3 a.m. if there’s a storm,” he said. “That’s late for most people. Most guys don’t go to bed, if they have 50 to 60 driveways.”

Despite its hard effects on the independent plow drivers, there is a silver lining to all these rain clouds. Towns that have their own municipal crews do the work to keep the roads clear have been relieved at a winter that has been light on extra charges.

“The biggest thing is we’re saving money on diesel fuel and overtime,” Dana Reed, Bar Harbor town manager, said.

Last year, diesel fuel charges in the town ran 25 percent over budget and winter overtime costs ran $25,000, or 53 percent over budget. Though this winter’s highway division budget picture is sunnier than last year’s, Reed was pragmatic when talking about the weather.

“It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” he said.

Large contracting companies that turn to plowing in the wintertime to give their crews something to do – and to make a little cash – also have done well in the mild winter.

Timmy Gott, president of Doug Gott & Sons of Southwest Harbor, said that business has been fine this winter – although it is likely that this will be the worst year ever for their snowplow division.

“We haven’t plowed hardly anything,” he said. “But we do construction work, concrete work. It’s been great.”

In a normal winter, the company’s 17 or 18 plow trucks will earn $70,000 to $80,000 clearing off driveways. This winter’s plow profits are way down from that, he said, but it doesn’t matter.

“Technically speaking, it hasn’t hurt us,” Gott said.

While waiting for snow to fall, Bowden keeps busy maintaining his plow equipment, working at his other job and keeping an ear tuned to the forecasts.

“I live by The Weather Channel and local forecasts and NOAA Weather Radio,” he said.

Plowing may not be the easiest way to make a few extra dollars, but it’s necessary, and as much a part of Maine winters as woolen socks and the hope of spring.

“It helps pay the bills,” Bowden said. “Everybody around here, Mainers, we make do.”

The longtime driver said that he adheres to an unofficial golden rule of wintertime as he works to get the plowing job done.

“Most of my people I plow for are working class people like myself,” he said. “I treat them the way I’d want to be treated.”