Helsinki’s road maintenance teams have already collected and dumped 80,000 truckloads of snow this winter, while snow is still coming.
In average winters, snow removal teams fill 40-60,000 truckloads of snow.
The prevailing situation made the city’s snow removal team consider how to deal with the extra white stuff.
Helsinki has set aside EUR 24 million for snow care this winter, but that is not enough Pekka Isoniemi, head of the city maintenance unit. He said an additional four or five million euros would be needed for the work.
Workers are transporting snow to nine landfills, but these are starting to fill up, according to Isoniemi.
The city also continues to pour snow into the sea off the Hernesaari archipelago, but the practice has raised widespread environmental questions and criticism.
Isoniemi said the snow removal team decided on Wednesday to fortify its equipment arsenal to solve a growing problem when the city plans to look for contractors to carry out additional work.
The city also plans to host more trucks, tractors, snowmobiles and plows.
"We probably need more equipment than we can get. Everyone wants more equipment in the area," he explained.
One problem faced by snow removal workers is snow shoveling from the property into the city’s recently cleared streets.
"Even though the street has just been cleared, there may be more snow there within a week, even if it has not snowed," Isoniemi said.
Although there has been a lot of snow this winter, there is still a long way to go to reach the record levels that fell in the city in the winter of 2010-2011.
That winter, the city’s crews collected about 300,000 truckloads of white goods, and the snow removal budget increased by 14 million euros more than originally planned.