Cashman: For safety’s sake, Walsh should put snow into harbor

Mayor Walsh, it’s time to put environmental concerns aside and start dumping the mounds of snow piling up around the city into Boston Harbor.

An unprecedented amount of snow has hammered the city, and it has created incredibly dangerous intersections where it is nearly impossible to see oncoming traffic due to snow piles.

The mayor told Boston Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” yesterday he isn’t ruling out this option. “That is something we might have to consider. … There is a forecast for more snow coming on Thursday and Friday. At some point we are going to run out of space. The snow-melters cost money.”

As a mother who lives in the city with a small child, I worry about youngsters crossing these treacherous intersections. We can’t wait for a fatal accident to ask for a waiver and start dumping this snow into our waterways instead of using the costly and time-consuming process of melting it.

Gov. Charlie Baker also told Herald Radio, “There are provisions in place for local communities to seek a waiver from DEP in extraordinary and extreme conditions to do that sort of thing on a limited basis. … There are only four communities that have sought waivers.”

Any city or town who seeks a waiver to dump snow in a waterway should do it as a last resort. We are talking about very dirty snow that contains motor oil, trash and other pollutants. Boston has hit the breaking point where we need to consider public safety before anything else.

The mayor told me how his DPW crews are running out of steam trying to keep up with this latest blizzard. “We’ve pretty much for the last 14 days, every single day, have either been in a situation where we’ve been plowing streets or removing snow. There hasn’t been a break in 14 days. I don’t know what the end cost will be of these storms.”

Despite the city’s efforts, residents remain furious with the amount of snow on street corners. As many as 6,000 people are calling the mayor’s hotline daily. We have entered extreme circumstances, with more than 60 inches of snow in two weeks, which require difficult decisions the mayor needs to make — and fast.

Jaclyn Cashman is co-host of “Morning Meeting” on Boston Herald Radio.