What do you get when you attach strong magnets to each of Seward County’s motor graders and send them out to do their work for a year?
You get a spikey, gnarly, ball made of screws, nails, wire shavings, small parts, several crescent wrenches and at least one toolbox weighing 1,320 pounds, according to Seward County Roads Superintendent Jon Regnier.
His department recently disposed of more than a half ton of metal collected along Seward County roads in the past year at Fehlhafer’s Inc. in Utica. The individual pieces were picked up by the 16 motor graders and eventually compiled together at the county shop.
“We were just getting phone call after phone call after phone call of people getting flat tires,” Regnier said.
The county borrowed a Saline County truck equipped with a strong magnet after a report that a truck had lost some volume of nails on a county road, and were impressed with the number of nails and other items it saved from getting in people’s tires.
After exploring the option of making their own attachable magnets for county trucks, Regnier said he and his team found it would be less expensive to purchase the strong, wide magnets that attach to the rear of the truck and have eyelets of fine chains dangling about two inches above the ground to keep things in place.
Regnier said the weight of the big ball of metal surprised him. He had guessed it would be about 400 pounds lighter. But the 1,320 pounds brought in $82 in scrap revenue for the department.
For perspective, Regnier estimated that is about as much as a large tractor tire, and Cassidy Whittington, service writer at AKRS John Deere in Seward confirmed it.
A John Deere 600 R series 18.4R46 tractor tire weighs right around 1,300 pounds.
The spikey, gnarly ball of metal weighed more than a large grizzly bear (1,150 pounds), more than a grand piano (990 pounds), and about a third of a 2009 Ford Taurus, according to The Measure of Things website.
It is not a money-making endeavor. Regnier said there will always be metal working its way up from under the roads or new spills where the trucks have not yet driven. So motorists must still beware.
The county purchased 18 magnets for the 16 motor graders on the road for about $420 apiece.
“Since we bought so many in bulk, we got a good deal,” Regnier said.
Every county road has had a magnet run across it in the last 12 months. Regnier also said the trucks would drive specific roads when people report a spill of nails or other metal items falling from vehicles.
“I do not think we will ever get to the point where we do not have anything hard there on the roads,” Regnier said.
But the magnets could save a few tires.
