Middleburgh Suffers Sand Shortage

MIDDLEBURGH - At the latest Middleburgh Town Board meeting last Thursday, members heard remarks from Highway Superintendent Steve Kowalski about the state of their winter supplies.

According to his highway report, his crew is running into regular problems with sourcing sand and salt, as the harsh storms have been unkind to their regular reserves.

“We’ve been using more than normal,” Superintendent Kowalski said. “Just like last year, and the year before. We use up more every year.”

As stated in the past, he reaffirmed to the Board that everyone is having trouble getting their supplies, from the towns to the county to even the state.

“I get told that it’ll be a three day wait, then that becomes ten days, then it becomes thirty, and then they say that all of it is spoken for by the Department of Transportation,” Superintendent Kowalski shared.

Unfortunately, stockpiling the supplies is out of the question due to the local salt shed not being big enough to last through the season, as he went on to say “If the salt shed is full in the fall, and we go through it at the rate that we’ve been, it wouldn’t last through the winter.”

“I’ve never seen it that empty since I came here,” Superintendent Kowalski finished.

When the Board asked for suggestions on how they could remedy the situation, Superintendent Kowalski said that they could increase the salt and sand budget line for next year’s winter, to which Supervisor John Youmans replied that they would consider it.

In other news, resident James Schilling took to the floor during public comment to suggest holding a Middleburgh Energy Symposium.

He began by saying that he’s kept in close contact with the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Cobleskill, who have pledged to send representatives to Middleburgh and hold energy literacy presentations if he can source the attendees and vendors.

While Mr. Schilling noted that he still has some work to get done on his end, he stood before the Board to ask for permission to use the community center as a public space for the event, to which members readily agreed.

“I think that this is wonderful,” said Susan Makely, with many others sharing her sentiment. “It would be a welcome thing, especially after the winter we’ve had.”

Giving their blessing for the event, which is currently set for a tentative May 3rd date, Supervisor Youmans asked to keep in contact just in case they needed to change anything, to which Mr. Schilling agreed.