About Us
Highways
To help maintain the 505 miles of County roads the Highway Department owns and operates a bituminous mix plant to make blacktop for all of our paving projects. The mix plant produces approximately 100,000 tons of blacktop per year. We also receive revenue from the mix plant through inter-municipal agreements with other municipalities within the county.
We maintain permits with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) for 10 gravel pits. Traction control sand, sand, and gravel are produced from the gravel pits to be used on roads in the winter and provide material to construct and maintain our county roads. We also use sand and gravel in our blacktop production. This necessitates coordination and cooperation with the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
Revenue
We contract with the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and are responsible for snow removal on 295.51 lane miles of state highways and seven parking lots owned by the state. We typically receive an average of $3 million in revenue per year to perform this service. Our snow removal operations include plowing, salting, and removing snow and ice from the roads and within the villages of Cleveland, Central Square, Parish, Williamstown, Phoenix, and Hannibal. We are also responsible for snow removal on 78.8 miles of county roads and ten county facility parking lots. We contract with the towns for them to remove snow on the remainder of 425.68 miles of county roads.
Other sources of revenue that we receive to help maintain the highway infrastructure include the following:
- Approximately $3.2 million per year from the New York State Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS).
- Approximately $0.7 million per year from the New York State PAVE-NY appropriation.
- Approximately $0.3 million per year from the New York State Extreme Winter Recovery appropriation.
- Approximately $2.5 million from the New York State BRIDGE-NY appropriation.
Engineering
Our in house engineering team is responsible for the design, maintenance, and repair of the county's roads, bridges, culverts, and other drainage appurtenances. We are involved in all phases of design and construction on all of our in house projects, as well as the construction administration of the state and federally aided projects we contract out. We maintain records of construction projects and contracts with several consultants and state agencies.
Equipment Maintenance
We have three maintenance facilities located in the towns of Scriba, Parish, and Richland, where we maintain more than 400 vehicles and heavy construction equipment. Our shops do everything from inspecting vehicles to rebuilding engines on snowplows, trucks, cars, pickup trucks, wheel loaders, bulldozers, track hoes, bucket trucks, and graders. The Parish facility also has a welding shop used to repair equipment and fabricate bridge structures, railing, pipes, and drainage structures. A sign shop, located at the Scriba facility, is used to make all the signs used on county roads, as well as decals for county vehicles.
Oswego County Airport
The Oswego County Airport is a separate division of the highway department and is located in the Town of Volney, just northeast of the City of Fulton. The airport serves local pilots and national and international companies with fueling and hangar facilities. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) designated the airport as a general aviation reliever to Hancock International Airport. The airport hosts a flight school and charter service. Airport staff is responsible for maintaining two runways, 100’ x 4000’ and 100’ x 5200’, as well as all taxiways, hangars, on approximately 400 acres. A total of over $28 million in revenue has been received from Federal and State sources for the construction and maintenance of infrastructure at the airport.