Grounds workers prepare for winter

When the snowy winter months hit the campuses, the CSB+SJU Grounds Department does all the behind-the-scenes work to maintain the groundwork needed around both campuses and ensure that students stay safe from the slippery ice and snow.

Each grounds crew consists of a grounds director, four full-time groundskeepers and many student employees. The Grounds Department maintains 118 acres of lawns and playing fields, 16 ¾ acres of parking lots, 6 ½ miles of sidewalks, and 7 miles of roadways. In the wintertime, the department also hand shovels nearly an acre of stairs, ramps and loading docks and works to prevent ice on heavily traveled walkways.

The grounds crew takes justifiable pride in the appearance of the campus.

“Our overall goal is to provide the best experience for our students. We want everyone to be safe and be proud of campus. There’s a lot that goes into that,” SJU Grounds Director Tony Webber said.

The crew started preparations for the winter season back in September. This is typical for the crew as they check to ensure all equipment and needed materials are ready and set when the snow and ice hit.

“We took everything out a little over a month ago and checked all our attachments and all our equipment and made sure everything worked. There were a few things that didn’t, so we fixed them,” Webber said. “Last Tuesday, when the snow hit, it was a good test for us to ensure everything was running smoothly.”

Webber said that the environment surrounding SJU makes some of their winter practices different from those at CSB under Grounds Director Chris Brake.

“Ice management is a big thing. We try to reduce our salt usage as much as possible at St. John’s, probably less than St. Ben’s because we have lakes all around us. Pretty much anything that’s on a hard surface one way or another ends up in the lake,” Webber said.

As a substitute for salt, the SJU grounds crew uses sand and is considering other solutions to prevent ice buildup, like beet juice as an organic alternative to other chemical solutions to melt ice.

SJU senior Thomas Warnke said that the duties for grounds crew extend beyond just keeping ice under control.

“Our main duties during the winter involve snow removal and salting and sanding roads, sidewalks and stairs around campus,” Warnke said via email. “We also clear off ice rinks, empty trashes, pick up litter, rake the dome athletic field and help with funerals in the Abbey cemetery during the winter months.”

Karyn Morrissey, a CSB sophomore, worked with the SJU grounds crew this past summer and into the fall. She said the job involved an adjustment period for the first few weeks before she got used to the routine and the team she worked with.

“We’d arrive early in the morning, get our to-do list of the day and work together as a team to get it all done. You get pretty close with the people you work with. Once you start at grounds, the connections you made don’t just disappear,” she said via email. “I had to cut back on my hours once fall started because of my academics, but I will see the guys I worked with over the summer around campus, and they’ll wave and sometimes even stop to catch up.”

Morrissey said that now that winter is approaching, she will turn to alternative jobs on campus because it is harder for CSB students to do grounds crew work in the winter.

“The grounds crew is up really early in the morning for snow removal and sand spreading, early enough to where I cannot catch a bus to make it to work,” Morrissey said.

Warnke said the upcoming grounds crew is preparing for a winter that will hopefully not have as grueling snow conditions as previous years.

“I’m most excited for the winter because we are predicted to get less snow this year, as opposed to the 88 inches we got last year. I’m not really looking forward to more early mornings and long days of shoveling, but the hard work is rewarding,” Warnke said.