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    Living Snow Fence

    Every winter season, PennDOT is faced with the challenge of blowing and drifting snow on its roadways. Snow drifts can jeopardize public safety and emergency services and increase road maintenance costs. Living snow fences consist of rows of living plants, such as grasses, shrubs and other plants. These living snow fences are strategically planted windbreaks that have been specifically designed to reduce blowing and drifting snow. 

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    Traditionally, PennDOT has used plastic construction fence to help minimize drifting during winter weather events, and before that, wood fence was used; however, those traditional methods can be labor intensive to install, maintain and remove following the winter season. As an alternative to the traditional methods, PennDOT is looking to use living snow fences where possible. Living snow fences consist of rows of living plants, such as grasses, shrubs and other plants, which cause blowing snow to settle in a designated area. 

    How Does It Work?

    Living snow fences are strategically planted windbreaks that have been specifically designed to reduce blowing and drifting snow. While a variety of plants can be used for this purpose, PennDOT is focusing its efforts on the use of corn for the living snow fence. A living snow fence traps blowing and drifting snow and prevents it from covering the plowed roadway. A living snow fence is created by strategically harvesting the corn in a field. Farmers leave a 20- to 40-feet gap between the road and the first row of standing corn. Then, 20 to 40 feet, or approximately eight to 16 rows of corn, are left standing and act as a “buffer” trapping the snow between the corn and the road. 

    What Are The Benefits?

    Living snow fences are less costly than both plowing and plastic snow fences. The cost of installation, maintenance and removal for a plastic snow fence costs about $7.25/ foot. On the flip side, the cost of a living snow fence using corn is about $3/foot, and according to the Strategic Highway Research Group, it costs 100 times more to plow snow than to trap it with a snow fence.

    Regarding their respective ability to keep snow from drifting back to the road, a living snow fence is much more effective than plastic snow fences. Living snow fences require very little upkeep or labor on the part of PennDOT employees and are more environmentally friendly, as they provide food and shelter for local wildlife. Additionally, areas with living snow fences require less salt usage, which in turn benefits local aquifers as well as all waterways across Pennsylvania. In addition, living snow fences help Pennsylvania’s farmers by purchasing rows of corn regardless of whether the growing season yielded a good corn crop for the season, giving farmers a guaranteed income for at least part of the crops they planted. 

    Innovation in Motion

    The concept of living snow fences has been tested by various PennDOT districts over the years. More recently, PennDOT’s Engineering District 8 compared the plastic and living snow fence during a pilot in Lebanon County. While both were effective at keeping snow from drifting back onto the road, the living snow fence outperformed the plastic snow fence and kept the roadway completely clear of any snow drift. 

    The STIC’s Maintenance Technical Advisory Group is working to establish a contract mechanism to be able to compensate farmers. This ensures that farmers receive a guaranteed payment for their crops, even if it is year with a bad crop yield, since it is not the corn itself that stops the drifting snow, merely the stalks that remain in place.