With just a few hours to spare before the snow hit again, Cobleskill cut the ribbon on its shared salt shed Thursday.
The 66-x-90-x-42-foot enclosed structure will let the town stockpile as much as 3,500 tons of sand and salt, said Highway Superintendent Tom Fissell, something that will let him buy it during the summer when prices are lowest.
“It’s been a dream of the Highway Department for years,” said Supervisor Mike Montario.
The salt shed is being funded mostly by a $300,000 grant the municipalities received from the Department of State’s Shared Municipal Service Incentives program; Deputy Mayor Sandy MacKay donated his time to write the grant.
The remaining $33,000 in additional costs will be split by the village and town.
The town and village applied for the grant in 2006, Mr. Montario said, it was awarded in June, and site work like grading began in October.
The shed features a reinforced vinyl roof over a tubular steel frame by Cover-all Building Systems and crews worked on-site late into the night Wednesday to complete the job.
Doug VanDeusen of Lamont Engineers, engineers for the project, said they took the viewscape of the area into consideration when placing the structure.
“It’s a unique style,” he said. “With no buttresses taking up space on the outside, it’s a lot easier to work around the building.”
The roof is designed in six sections, Mr. VanDeusen said, so it can be replaced in pieces if repairs are needed.
By covering Cobleskill’s salt and sand mix, he added, there’s an environmental bonus for the structure as well.
The salt shed has an estimated life of 20 years—but that’s only because that’s as old as the company is, Mr. VanDeusen said.
The shared shed is only one of the ways the village and town are trying to work together, Mr. Montario pointed out; they’re also cooperating on a study examining other shared services.
“We do work together,” he said. “This is something important that we’ve accomplished.”