Last weekend’s snowstorm might have been Barton County’s Road and Bridge Director Chris Schartz’s first time as trail boss, but he’s spent a lot of time before that in the saddle.

Schartz, a Claflin native, has been employed with the county’s R&B department since 2019 and was named director last Oct. 1.

As the general Golden Belt area continues to dig out from last weekend’s snowfall, Schartz noted that the R&B trucks have been out salting roads since last Saturday morning. After a week’s time, he estimated that the department is “about halfway” through the first snow removal process. What would be really helpful, he said, would be a few warmer days.“The biggest problem with the salt that we put down on the roads, is that it’s got to be at least 20-25 degrees for that to even work,” he said. “Earlier on in the week, it wasn’t getting warm enough for it to do its job. Luckily, here in the last couple days it is starting to get warmer and today (Friday) will help quite a bit.”

Making headway

“There are spots that are good, and other spots that still need a little bit of work,” Schartz said. “The more high-traffic county roads, of course, are going to clear off faster.”

Around 300 tons of salt is on order, as the department has just about depleted its reserves, he said. Sand for the roads is mixed in a 2-to-1 ratio with salt before it is put down, Schartz explained. “I can’t say exactly how much we’ve already put down, but I can tell you that each truck can hold about 13-14 tons of salt mix and we’ve had 10 trucks out doing about 2-3 loads per day,” he said. “You can pretty much figure it out from that.

“With the salt that we’ve got on order, we can say that we will be ready for the next time.”