NORTH CANTON: A ruptured hydraulic line on most city vehicles can require a 911 call to the nearest hazardous materials team and a costly cleanup and removal of several yards of contaminated dirt.
A similar breakdown involving the North Canton Street Department fleet now will require only a hose and water cleanup after the last truck was drained Thursday and its hydraulic fluid replaced with a blend of a biodegradable soybean, sunflower and canola oil.
The city is joining a handful of places that have made the change from mostly petroleum-based fluids to bio-based vegetable oil in their snowplows, front-end loaders and dump trucks. Lake Township in Stark County has been running its fleet on the vegetable oil for the past year and a half. The Portage Area Regional Transit Authority converted to bio-based fluids in 2009.
Aside from being environmentally friendly, the annual savings can be considerable, said Rich Rhodes, operations manager for the city’s street department.
Before the changeover, the last hydraulic line break in a city salt truck caused a one- or two-gallon leak before the operator discovered it. The bill to clean up the mess was $7,000 to make sure there was no damage done to the environment.
“If you can picture a quart of oil that spills, a little bit will spread a long way,” Rhodes said.
Over the past several months, the city has been changing its fleet of six 2›-ton dump trucks and six smaller four-wheel-drive snowplows over from mostly petroleum-based hydraulic oil to the new bio-based vegetable oil from Renewable Lubricants Inc. of Suffield Township. The new product should last at least 10 years, Rhodes said.
North Canton Mayor David Held, who is executive director of the Stark-Tuscarawas-Wayne Solid Waste Management District, said the district replaced the fluid in its four trucks with the renewable product in the past year.
“It has been so successful for us, I thought we should do it in North Canton, too,” he said.
There are several ways a truck that uses hydraulics to raise and lower snowplow blades or dump beds could experience a leak, Rhodes said.
“You could break a coupling, a line or a hose. You could lose 45 to 50 gallons of fluid within a short time,” he said.
A 55-gallon drum of biodegradable oil, which is slightly more than it takes to fill a typical truck’s reservoir, costs the city about $1,200, Rhodes said. A similar-sized drum of hydraulic fluid is between $700 and $800.
There are several advantages to replacing the fluid with vegetable-based oil, said Jacqueline Garmier, who owns Renewable Lubricants with her husband, William.
“It supports local and Ohio businesses and reduces our dependence on [petroleum-based] oil,” she said.
North Canton is also looking into “green” substitutes to replace the rock salt it uses on city streets in the winter, Held said.
Kathy Antoniotti can be reached at 330-996-3565 or kantoniotti@thebeaconjournal.com.