By William Tauro

This past week, Somerville received their $200,000 plus investment of a state-of-the-art snow melter which was delivered to the Somerville Department of Public Works.

The giant snow melter runs on a diesel engine which heats up five hundred gallons of water to create steam which actually melts the snow in a topside hopper.

As we were told by sources that somebody filled the five hundred gallon water container in the steamer in anticipation of the sales and service reps to appear on scene as scheduled, but they didn’t show. While waiting for the reps to arrive in the single digit frigid temperatures, the unit froze into a giant block of ice.

Note: the Somerville DPW was just following the directions from the sales manufacturer that caused this ordeal with their no show.

As we were told the City of Somerville sent back to the factory for service and it returned a day after and is now in fully functional operational condition.