Record Snow In Las Vegas

Not even a “storm”  by our standards, of course, but it is pretty neat to see this!

Story here.

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Snow

We are getting what looks like our first real snow today so here’s one from a couple of years ago looking south from Pullman.

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Now Where Do We Put The Snow?

Interesting article that looks at damage caused by snowblowing snow in Westmount. Also suggested is where will snow get dumped when Turcot is a construction site? Seems the Ministry of Transportation is also looking for extra space for the project as in expropriating a part of Westmount’s city yards.

Westmount is one of several demerged cities on the Island.

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De Carillon Street Entrance

A few shots of the canal like road coming up from de Carillon. This was the main entrance to Turcot after the interchange was built.

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grey11

Nice shot from the Interchange.

Catch grey11′s Flickr pages here.

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Meltdown At Turcot

Article in today’s Gazette discusses the Turcot snowpiles in regard to melting and contamination of the water.

“There might be a potential for contamination that could have been recognized by the Environment Ministry and the Transport Ministry,” said Yves Girard, head of Montreal’s snow removal co-ordination office, referring to the Turcot site. “But it’s a site that’s well waterproofed because it has been paved over – so any water, in theory, will melt toward the sewers and not into the soil.

“The risks aren’t high, but we never know.”

It is hard to say how much pollution is under the Turcot asphalt. It was a very busy yard from the coal burning era that was refiitted into a container yard in the early 1960′s. You can bet that CNR did not decontaminate the land, which it owned, but merely paved over. However, as a rail and container yard, and based upon personal observations, Turcot has an excellent drainage system in place (there was once Otter Lake in the east end and the Riviere Saint Pierre ran through it). Still, this is a site where snow was removed from until 2002, so it will be interesting to see how it holds up under these new conditions.

Phil Carpenter, The Gazette.

And it could certainly serve as a teaching aid to demonstrate how pollution exists in sometimes very appealing situations such as nice big, bright snowpiles.

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It’s A Small Island

View of west end of former Golf Dorval land currently getting developed.

And on close up we see Mount Royal.

(hand held 200mm not very sharp)

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Snow Removal At Trudeau

Most of us probably do not give a lot of thought to things such as snow removal at the airport. But take an area that is the size of a couple of boroughs, a near record  amount of snow, and you can begin to understand the enormity of the job. So today I will salute those who have worked hard at clearing snow this year (which is just about all of us) with a special nod to those who keep the runways clear.

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More Trains, Less Planes, Please

Henry Aubin writes in today’s Gazette about the expansion plans at Trudeau International. He questions whether spending billions to expand the airport is really in everyone’s best interest in this brave new age of Global Warming. It probably isn’t, as in the coming decade we will probably see an international movement towards an agreement to begin to restrict airline usage. Personally, I have long believed that a high speed rail link to Mirabel would have taken care of all of Montreal’s airline needs quite efficiently. Didn’t happen. Won’t.

But the green space still available on the island is indeed getting eaten up with the gradual development of the Golf Dorval lands. The wild and the innocent do not do well living side by side, but here at least, was an opportunity to have a genuine wildlife zone on the island, where something of a compromise may have worked. Below are fox tracks at the gate to a new construction zone on the western edge of the old course.

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Turcot On The News

There is a whole bunch of videos on this page showing Montreal’s latest storm (March 8-9) and the action at Turcot is seen in the background of the one below brought to you by Anon514.

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nicolasleblond

View from just west of Saint Remi street. Welcome Hall Mission on left.

And you can catch nicolasleblond’s Flickr pages here.

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Terrain A Vendre

Or Land For Sale. Former 2M Ressources glass recycling plant land. Not sure who would want to buy that especially if they know that they will be surrounded by a construction zone for 6 years or more as the Projet Turcot is happening.

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More Snowpile

Same pile. It’s interesting how it looks like a real landscape, albeit a strange one, from some angles.

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Snowpile

This one is just east of Thimens and Poirier in Ville Saint Laurent. Wide angle lens tends to shorten it a bit.

I really wished I had a video camera that day. The way the machines move around up there, it really is a “ballet mechanique“. Well, somebody should do it!

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Lac Saint Louis

From two years ago near Pointe Claire Village.

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