Icebreaking roller machine could be game-changer for Charles City

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Ice and snow are the enemies in winter driving.

Alaska and Minnesota may have found a solution, courtesy of Canada.

Street departments across the upper Midwest sometimes struggle to break up compacted ice and snow on city streets.

When sand, salt and conventional blades can’t do the trick, drivers are often left with what amounts to an ice skating rink to drive on when winter temperatures reach sub-zero levels.

Charles City and Clear Lake have a plan that could not only make roads safer to drive on, but also lessen the load on your automobile.

“Whether it’s this winter or other winters, it always seems to happen, where we get to a point where we just can’t get down to bare pavement,” said City Administrator Steve Diers.

Diers spoke to the City Council last Wednesday during a planning session and discussed the possibility of Charles City and Clear Lake teaming up to purchase icebreaker roller machines.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation currently has 11 in use, according to Charles City Street Superintendent Dirk Uetz.

“It will help if you have to put down material. It makes holes so you can get in there and loosen it up. Then the chemicals will work better,” said Uetz.

The Gopher State utilized the machines in Minneapolis during Super Bowl LII. The rollers, which are nine-feet wide on certain models, feature carbide-tipped spikes or hardened cones that fracture ice and snow to make it easier for snow plows to move the material out of the way.

“It looks like it will be a game-changer if we can get one purchased,” said Uetz.

The Raiko machines were first introduced to Alaska and Minnesota about five years ago and are built by Team Eagle, of Campbellford, Ontario, in Canada.

“It’s something that could be a good option for us,” said Diers.

By the time street crews get to the caked-on ice and snow mix, some streets have already hardened, making removal difficult.

“You get cars to drive on it before we get it plowed off. Most of the time we can’t get to it to cut it off,” said Uetz.

The Raiko icebreaker is mounted on the front of snow plows and work best when the ice is one-quarter to a half-inch on the roads. The small holes it creates help deicing chemicals penetrate the ice to melt or loosen it. The machines also add texture or profile to ice or snow-laden streets to make them easier to navigate.

Although the units can use downward pressure to improve breakage, the machine doesn’t require it to be effective — meaning the road’s surface is not damaged.

“I think it’s going to gain a lot of popularity here in the near future,” said Uetz. “It’s a real beneficial tool.”

Right now Uetz says he doesn’t know of any towns in Iowa that utilize the technology that is also used at airports.   

“I would say it’s more of a northern Iowa, Minnesota machine than it is much further south than us,” Uetz said.

Uetz said the price for one such roller is around $32,000, but with the purchase of two machines that prices lowers by several thousand dollars.

Uetz and Diers, along with the city of Clear Lake, will make a trip up to the DOT in Owatonna, Minnesota, in the coming weeks to take a look at the machines.

Uetz said Clear Lake recently conducted a poll and 86 percent of residents were in favor of purchasing the icebreaker.

“It would be really nice to be able to save the time and money we’re putting in on trying to break that stuff up and have this device that would go through and break it up so it could be scraped off,” said Diers. “That seems to be a growing problem for us.”

Could this machine be available for use in Charles City come next winter?

“That’s my hope,” said Uetz.