AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Last month, 22 inches of snow fell in Faust, North Carolina, about 12 inches in Newark, New Jersey, and over 30 inches in New Mexico. We've all been digging ourselves out, and we aren't talking about cute, light, fluffy snow.
JEREMY HASSAN: Four or 5 inches froze up and it created that snowcrete or icecrete (ph), whatever everybody's calling it.
RASCOE: That's Jeremy Hassan. He heads the Water, Sewers and Streets Bureau in Arlington County, Virginia. Snowcrete is hard, icy, filled with salt, litter and who knows what else. So that got us to thinking, where does all that snow go?
HASSAN: Any and all places that the county has controlled space to store it at, like in front of our courthouse area. And then we have several other parking lots and places throughout the county that we're challenged to take it to. It's been very tiresome. It's been challenging.
RASCOE: And you can't just shove it into a nearby lake or river. Groundwater supplies need to be protected, but not all towns have a bunch of parking lots.
JOSHUA GOODMAN: You know, in New York, our one nonrenewable resource is curb space, right? We have an extremely finite amount of free real estate available.
RASCOE: Joshua Goodman is the Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Sanitation. He says their snowbanks can get up to over 20 feet. Because of limited space, Goodman's city brings the snow to giant ice melters known as hot tubs.
GOODMAN: And then a front-end loader will load about 1,000 pounds at a time into the snow Jacuzzis, the hot tubs. Actually, the water inside is only 38 degrees, just warm enough to melt the snow, and then it goes into the New York City sewer system and then onto a wastewater treatment plant.
RASCOE: Goodman estimates the hot tubs have melted 240 million pounds of snow and ice so far. But he says, please don't be fooled by the name.
GOODMAN: If you see one of these, as tempting as it is, don't jump in. And - you know, and they steam up, and they look beautiful, but it's not the kind of place to have a spa day.
RASCOE: And a wastewater plant is no place to treat yourself. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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