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Our Community, Our News
JANUARY 23, 2013
Vol. 5 No. 21
Hold the salt
Another mild winter could come with a cost this spring By Laura Katauskas and Nick Reiher Enterprise Publications
Whether or not you like the white, fluffy stuff coating the streets, the lack of snow and unseasonable temperatures are a mixed blessing for most, with the ramifications of a mild winter lurking to a possible problematic spring. Even the prospect of a couple hundred golfers able to play on its courses in January isn’t enough to offset the concerns Joliet Park District officials have about the lack of snow on top of last summer’s drought. The lack of moisture and a hard freeze means the likelihood of more insects eating up Joliet Park District courses when the
weather turns warmer, said Dominic Egizio, executive director. Manpower hours saved now translates to more hours necessary for manual watering and aeration, as well as applying insecticides, added Ted Brodeur, the park district’s superintendent of Revenue Facilities. With more golfers right now, they said the District’s three golf clubhouses are doing well. But the lack of snow doesn’t do much good for the local Nordic Ski Club, which was supposed to have its annual meet the weekend of Jan. 19 at Woodruff Golf Course. Likewise, the Forest Preserve District of Will County has had to adapt its winter offerings due to the lack of snow, including its annual “Musher Mania” event Jan. 12.The
Bugle File Photo
Scenes like these from the cleanup of the February 2011 blizzard that paralysed the Midwest have become a distant memory in the wake of unseasonably warm temperatures the past two years.
sled dogs this year had to pull wheeled sleds instead, said Bruce Hodgdon, the district’s spokesman. Other programs such as “Warm Up to Snowshoeing” and “Twilight Tubing”
obviously had to be canceled. And other snow-based programs could be either canceled or altered, he said. See SNOW NO, page 2