This winter will eventually end — the calendar turns the page to Spring on March 19th — but the spring thaw may come even sooner. Michael Rawlins is head of the Climate System Research Center at UMass Amherst. He says when New England’s record-setting snowfall this winter melts, it may bring a host of problems.
This year’s tough winter cost the Connecticut Department of Transportation $10 million more than planned. The DOT had budgeted about $30 million for snow and ice removal, based on a ten-year average. But the brutal winter drove costs up to $40 million. DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick says several long winter storms made the winter more expensive.
“Duration of a storm event has a lot to do with the cost,” says Nursick. “So even if it’s maybe only four or five inches of snow, but it drags on over the course of 24 or 36 hours, that’s a very expensive storm.”
Nursick says some years the DOT can make up a winter cost overrun within the agency budget. but this year, it will have to ask the legislature for help to fill in the budget gap.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts’ transportation department says it spent $131 million on snow and ice removal, well over the $43 million it was budgeted.
In a nearly unanimous vote at its town meeting Monday night, the town of Amherst chose to opt-out of a controversial federal immigration program called Secure Communities. The vote ensures that requests to hold undocumented immigrants by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, will not be honored by the Amherst Police Department.
Secure Communities is an effort by ICE to remove undocumented immigrants who pose a threat to national security or public safety. Under the program, ICE can make a request, called a detainer, to hold a suspected illegal immigrant. It can also run background checks to identify the immigration status of an individual after an arrest. Jeff Napolitano, a principal supporter of Amherst’s resolution, says the town’s participation in background checks is federally mandated.
“What isn’t out of the town’s hands, and what was declared yesterday, was that the police department will not honor requests to hold undocumented immigrants.”
In a statement, Ross Feinstein, a spokesperson for ICE said that though ICE has not sought to compel compliance among local police, “Jurisdictions that ignore detainers bear the risk of possible public safety risks.”
Amherst Chief of Police Scott Livingstone says he is fully supportive of the resolution, though his department has never received an ICE detainer.