Snowplows Needed in Southern New Hampshire

By Avishay Artsy on Monday, January 10, 2005.

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If you live in southern New Hampshire and had trouble getting around during the recent snowstorms, there may be a reason.

The state of New Hampshire is having a hard time finding snowplowers to clean Interstate 93 and state roads near the Massachusetts border.

NHPR Correspondent Avishay Artsy has more.

Nick Hansen works for LaPlante Trucking & Landscaping in Amherst.

He plows the Citizens Bank parking lots in the greater Nashua area.

?When you wake up in the morning you expect your road to be plowed, or when you go to the store you expect the parking lot to be plowed? there?s definitely a lot of obligation.?

Plowing is the type of thing most drivers take for granted ? that is, unless it?s not done quickly enough.

Then people tend to get a little annoyed.

?If you tighten up, they?re in behind you, getting too close, tooting their horn because they?re very impatient? other than that, the normal gestures you get when people are mad at you.?

That?s Val LaPlante, the owner of LaPlante Trucking.

He?s been plowing for over 40 years.

And he understands that commuters don?t like sitting in traffic on account of snow-related accidents.

He stopped working for the state 20 years ago.

These days he makes his money plowing private parking lots like the Pheasant Lane Mall in Nashua.

He says the state just doesn?t pay enough.

Bill Boynton is with the state?s department of transportation.

?In recent years, we?ve had a lot of difficulty attracting a lot of hired plows and drivers in the southern part of the state. Quite frankly we don?t compete economically with Massachusetts, in terms of the rates that they offer, or even with a lot of the local cities and towns in southern New Hampshire.?

The DOT has a fleet of 300 trucks it uses to plow the snow.

On top of that they hire about 400 private contractors a year.

A couple months ago they were down 46 private plow operators, and now they?re down 31.

The department took out newspaper ads and even put up billboards on I-93 to attract plowers.

The state offers thirty-five to fifty-five dollars an hour, depending on the size of the truck.

That sounds like a lot, but Massachusetts offers about twenty dollars an hour more than that.

And some towns offer 10 or 15 dollars an hour more.

Thomas Mansfield is the DOT's district five maintenance supervisor.

That's the area between Manchester and Salem --usually the hardest-hit when it comes to finding plows.

?I?ve probably received 45 to 50 phone calls in the month of November and December, because we were trying to advertise that we needed some plow truck drivers. I think I?ve confirmed about four different drivers out of those 40 to 50. As soon as they hear what we?re going to give them as a wage, they say, ?oh sorry, I?m going to go back to state of Mass.??

Val LaPlante says that while money is an issue, a lot of plowers are also getting older.

?... they?re just getting sick and tired of snow. You don?t have the young guys coming in, getting the single trucks, which is what the state was relying on for years.?

LaPlante says working for the state means being on call 24 hours a day, and in a mild winter it means less money.

Shopping malls offer seasonal rates regardless of how much it snows, and he only goes out once there?s at least two inches on the ground.

The department is dealing with the shortfall by pulling in drivers from other parts of the state, or putting bridge maintenance drivers on the highways.

Bill Boynton says that while there are still gaps, it won?t cause more accidents on the road.

?It?s not a safety issue. It is a time issue, time in terms of again, maybe taking a little bit longer to do a route, but it?s a reality we?ve had to face in recent years in terms of the economic conditions out there.?

Boynton says that transportation officials are trying to fill the gaps, and in the meantime they hope to meet the high expectations of New Hampshire drivers.

For NHPR News, this is Avishay Artsy.