A car drives through a dust cloud as a worker blows cinders and rocks off the sidewalk along SW Reed Market Road near the intersection with SW Silver Lake Boulevard in Bend on Tuesday.(Andy Tullis/Bulletin photo)

Now that city street crews are done clearing snow from Bend’s roads and the remaining ice has melted away, they have a new job: sweeping up the rocks that were used to provide traction on slippery streets.

The city scatters tiny rocks on Bend’s streets during winter snowstorms to break up ice and keep tires from sliding. But after Bend was hit with record-breaking snowfall this winter, the city used more than four times the amount of rocks it normally spreads on streets, said David Abbas, the city’s streets manager.

Now that the worst of Bend’s winter weather appears to be over, crews are busy cleaning up the mess that created.

“Basically we have our street sweepers running as much as we’re able to,” Abbas said.

Crews have been able to work for the past couple of weeks now that the rocks and debris aren’t frozen to the ground, Abbas said. This week, the city hired some seasonal staff to use weed blowers and brooms to move debris into roads so it could be picked up by street sweepers. Those crews are focusing on streets downtown, bridges and roundabouts, which are priority areas for the city, Abbas said.

“This year will take longer to clean up than past years just because there’s more material,” Abbas said.

The storms were so bad this winter the city ran out of its preferred traction material — a black-colored rock — and had to switch to red cinders left over from past winters. The city stopped using the red cinders in 2008 because they clogged up storm drains and created more dust. The black-colored rock holds up better and can be reused, but the city had no choice but to scatter the red rocks on streets, Abbas said.

Now the red and black rock have mixed together, and it may not be cost-effective to separate the black rock and recycle it, Abbas said. He estimates that only 45 to 55 percent could be reused because the rocks were driven over by cars for months and crushed into dust.

Recycling the rock can also be expensive. The city must hire a private company to screen the dust from the rocks, Abbas said. And before that can happen, the rocks must be tested for heavy metal pollution — something that could be a problem because of the length of time they have been on roads, he said.

“The longer it’s out there, the more oils and things it’s picking up,” Abbas said.

In the next few months, Abbas will have to ask city councilors for money to replenish sanding supplies and equipment for next winter. Abbas said he also plans to ask city councilors for a larger snow-removal budget. This winter, the city originally budgeted $185,000 to hire private contractors to plow roads, but it spent about $672,000 to pay private companies in December and January alone.

— Reporter: 541-633-2160, mriker@bendbulletin.com

“This year will take longer to clean up than past years just because there’s more material.”— David Abbas, Bend’s streets manager