tim hens

In a continuing effort to put more time and distance between the Advanced Clean Trucks Rule coming to fruition here in Genesee County and in New York State, Public Works Commissioner Tim Hens asked members of the Legislature to send a resolution listing the issues for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s consideration.

Hens said the Advanced Clean Trucks Rule (ACT), a measure that originated in California, while noble in its effort to combat climate change, hasn't addressed issues such as what winter-laden Western New Yorkers must deal with.

“Our state association for county highway superintendents has asked commissioners and superintendents across the state to basically ask their legislature or board of supervisors to pass resolutions more or less, seeing there's going to be major impacts with the new advanced clean trucks across the state, especially relative to emergency vehicles and snow plows having to be electrified,” he said during the Public Service meeting. “So this resolution goes through all the things that we talked about previously in my department, update the cost of the vehicles, being able to charge them, the number of vehicles we'd have to have, the inability of the cost, and the inability to get any revenue when you sell them because of the battery life. 

“There's a whole litany of things that have yet to be figured out to make this new act something that's even tenable and capable for towns and counties to react to throughout the state,” he said. “So, it's really a utopian pipe dream that at this point in time, with the technology we have in place, cannot even come close to half.”

The bottom line is that battery technology does not exist to make a heavy-duty fleet — such as municipal snow plows — anywhere near as effective as the current diesel fleet, he said. 

“To fight a snowstorm, we would need three times as many trucks, a facility that can house and charge these trucks, and enough power in the grid to make charging a possibility,” he said. “The trucks are twice as expensive, 20,000 pounds heavier, have only a 10-year life, and no resale as the cost of new batteries will exceed the cost of the truck,” Hens said. “None of it makes sense. We’re hopeful that if enough counties and towns in New York make some noise, that maybe the lawmakers in Albany will understand that electrification in this instance doesn’t work.”

Legislator Gary Maha wondered why this Act was modeled after a state out west in the first place.

“I can't understand why New York State has adopted anything out of California State,” he said. “How ridiculous it is? Did they take into consideration that California's a different area than New York State? They don't get the snow or freezing rain and ice or anything else.”

Northern California does have mountains with colder temps, Hens said, though he isn’t certain how those areas are complying with the regulations.

“It’s just crazy. It’s to the point where truck manufacturers are talking about not selling vehicles in New York. And there’s large trucking companies … they’re talking about registering all their vehicles in other states, buying them all in other states, and then just operating them in New York with out-of-state plates, so it’s just crazy.”

The resolution states:

WHEREAS, in 2019, the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) was signed into law to require New York to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and no less than 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels, and

WHEREAS, the CLCPA directs the development of performance-based standards for sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions including for the transportation sector by reducing GHG emissions from motor vehicles, and

 WHEREAS, New York State adopted California's Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) Rule in December 2021 that requires applicable medium and heavy-duty (M/HD) vehicle manufacturers to sell a percentage of their total sales in New York as zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) starting in model year 2025 with increasing ZEV sales through model year 2035, and

WHEREAS, the cost of transitioning the state and local highway departments’ utility and construction vehicles, snowplows and equipment to run on battery power as mandated by ACT and other state strategies is at this juncture incalculable, but expected to exceed the ability to be financed without substantial sources of new revenues directed strictly for the retrofit or procurement of such ZEVs and equipment, and

WHEREAS, as commercial production of M/HD large-scale, electric construction vehicles is today a nascent industry, the ability of local highway departments to plan for this transition, with its concomitant mandates that fuel and electricity charging sources be carbon-free, is of tremendous concern considering that the transportation system at all levels of New York government is significantly underfunded, and

WHEREAS, while ACT regulations do not require M/HD fleets, owners, operators, or dealerships to purchase ZEVs, the sales mandates on vehicle manufacturers are expected to lead to shortages in supply of not only complying electric vehicles but of traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles as well, and

WHEREAS, alarmingly, some M/HD vehicle dealerships have notified highway departments that, due to manufacturers’ need to plan for the sales mandates adopted by New York and some other states, many orders for trucks are being delayed or canceled, and

WHEREAS, notably, Maine, North Carolina and Connecticut among other states recently stepped back from adopting ACT regulations citing concerns over the availability of heavy-duty vehicle charging stations and the high cost of zero-emission trucks, and

WHEREAS, in July 2024, the New York State Comptroller released an audit on the State’s progress in meeting Climate Act goals and noted several deficiencies including the need to increase communication with stakeholders and provide more accurate cost estimates. The audit goes on to add that the lack of cost estimates jeopardizes the chances of success in meeting climate goals. The comptroller urges the state to clarify for key stakeholders, especially energy ratepayers, the extent to which ratepayers will be responsible for Climate Act implementation costs, and

WHEREAS, New York’s climate goals must be implemented in a way that is affordable while assuring adequate supplies of these specialized vehicles and functional highway construction equipment that meet state specifications, estimated to increase the cost of a new truck by about one-third, and

WHEREAS, the rush to introduce electric vehicles in New York can be counterproductive to the environment as the bulk of the power generation used to charge new vehicle batteries is produced by fossil fuels, and is a reason to move more slowly to sync with the pace of the transition to a zero-emission electric grid by 2040, and

WHEREAS, recognizing these potential impacts on the ability of local governments to continue to deliver necessary transportation services and facilities to the traveling public it is vital that state elected representatives and agencies assist county highway departments in developing strategies, funding sources and realistic timelines for achieving these aggressive GHG emissions reduction goals in the face of market and fiscal barriers to the transition, and

WHEREAS, all levels of government need to work together throughout the regulatory process to assure strategies and mandates put in place to meet the CLCPA goals for the transportation sector are realistic and achievable and will benefit the environment. Now, therefore be it

RESOLVED, that Genesee County of New York State calls on the Governor, the NYS Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), NYSERDA, PSC, Commissioners and legislative leaders to commit to providing support for addressing these concerns in the regulatory and implementation process and to dedicate the funding necessary to fully cover the counties’ costs of complying with the state mandates under the CLCPA, Be it further

RESOLVED, that the Governor consider a pause or suspension of the implementation of ACT until there is strong evidence that the state has in place the necessary direct financial assistance and incentives and charging infrastructure necessary, and can definitively determine that vehicle manufacturers are prepared to effectively supply the New York market without disruption to the critical work needed to maintain the state’s vast and aging infrastructure, Be it Further

RESOLVED, that the state recognize that highway construction, maintenance vehicles, and equipment are critical to governments’ mission to maintain a safe and functional transportation system by designating these municipally owned vehicle and equipment as a category among “transit buses, motor coaches, and emergency vehicles,” and thus exempt from ACT regulation, Be it further

RESOLVED, that Genesee County shall forward copies of this resolution to Governor Kathy Hochul, the New York State Legislature; and the commissioners of NYSDOT, NYSDEC, NYSERDA, PSC and all others deemed necessary and proper.

Hens is not sure about the overall long-term effects of these more recent appeals from organizations and politicians to slow or halt the Act’s progress. 

“But in the short term, it seems we’ve gotten some response, as NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has reached out to municipalities and stated they will not enforce the new truck rules for emergency equipment for two years,” he said. “This is a start but a long way from full relief.”

Legislators agreed to sign and send the resolution to Albany.

For previous article about what the Clean Truck Act could mean for municipalities, go to Looming ev truck regulations to bring financial, logistical concerns

This year’s second annual Wings Over Batavia has already shown a promising sign of the air show's ongoing popularity: an uptick in attendance.

The 2024 event brought in some 2,000 additional people to Genesee County Airport, according to Tim Hens’ annual public works report.

There were approximately 11,000 attendees and volunteers on the premises this year, said Hens, the county’s public works commissioner.

Other figures that strayed from year one of the event were the 2,750 gallons of aviation fuel the county sold to the air show, resulting in $16,500 in revenue for the airport, he said. 

Fuel sales spiked at the end of 2023, one of the first real increases since the pandemic, Hens said. The return of the Mercy Flight helicopter helped Jet-A sales. This higher level of usage has continued this year, especially as fuel prices have come down a little, he said.

Overtime costs for public works employees at the air show were identical to those cited in 2023: $6,308. There were no traffic, safety or security issues and only two minor injuries, he said — a volunteer lacerated a finger and a patron suffered dehydration — that required medical attention.

For a second year in a row, Hens noted the quiet (outside of the Labor Day festivities) due to the lack of construction but promised that it is coming.

A future project for 2025 will include the replacement of many incandescent runway and taxiway lights with LED versions. “This should generate future savings on electrical usage,” he said.

An equipment storage building is being designed for construction in 2025, to be mostly paid for with a state AIR-99 grant. 

The county is working with OnCore Aviation, a start-up flight school at the airport, which has “great plans for the airport and the local aviation community,” Hens said. He believes “a successful flight school is essential at the airport.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a senior engineering technician position paying $7 less per hour than the going market rate has remained vacant since May 2023, “with very few interested in the position,” he said. 

“We also continue to have high turnover in positions,” Hens said. “We recently lost another very experienced heavy equipment operator who left for the town of Pembroke, which pays significantly more than the county.”

Work goes on, though, with the Fargo Road Bridge in Bethany under construction and scheduled for completion this fall and the Attica Road Bridge replacement design nearing completion and to go out for bid in 2025.

The county has eight federal aid or bridge or culvert projects programmed over the next three years, he said.

Other projects in progress, whether in the design or construction phase, include renovations at the Engine House on West Main Street to add an elevator and make the second floor more accessible; the Animal Shelter, mandated under state policy to be upgraded no later than Dec. 31, 2025, with the biggest change to be air-conditioned kennels; and Holland Land Office Museum’s several life-safety upgrades and Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations, also slated for 2025.

Under the county water category, “there’s always a lot going on with water,” Hens said.

Improvements continue at the city water treatment plant. The filter media was completely replaced, the new lime slaker and boiler were installed, the roof over the pipe gallery was repaired, some electrical and pump upgrades were made, and more is scheduled for the off-peak season. Hens believes there’s more reliability at the water plant, and it’s made a difference.

“We were able to make it through the summer without any type of water restriction,” he said.

Counter to that, there has been slow progress with Phase 2 of the county’s three-phase water project, he said. Investigation is being done about corroded materials at the Mumford and Churchville Pump Stations, and corrosion and its cause are delaying the completion of four remaining pump stations under construction. 

Progress has been made on the Morgan Road Pump Station, but due to the related corrosion problems at other stations, the pump selection and ordering must be completed before the improvements and extra water needed can be brought online, he said.

”Without a resolution within the next several weeks, the Phase 2 pump stations might not be brought online until 2026,” he said.

The Phase 3 basis of design, a significant project requiring the entire county to be reevaluated from a hydraulic and water quality standpoint, is nearing completion. 

Funding is also a major issue for the project's $150 million third phase.

“We continue to seek funds from anyone and everyone,” he said. 

The county recently applied for and received a $30 million Water Infrastructure Improvement grant, and “we have whispers that we might be successful on the first $10 million from the environmental program funds set aside within the Water Resources Development Act.”

Conundrum.

It’s what folks with their backs against the wall call a state protocol that mandates they abide by it no matter the cost, even when the cost might be astronomical, and in more ways than one.

The more official definition is a confusing or difficult problem or question. Insert New York State’s impending electric vehicle mandate, expected to fully begin taking effect by 2030, and ask Genesee County Public Works Commissioner Tim Hens what that’s going to mean in terms of expense and logistics for the department, and the two-digit conundrum he will face as result.

Would you believe about $80 million?

“And that’s not even counting the fact that you probably aren’t going to have the electric in the system to provide chargers for 54 trucks all at the same time,” Hens said during an interview with The Batavian. 

Just how does he arrive at such a figure? Well, electric vehicles have an estimated hour’s long charge to go out and do the snow plowing, he said, which means you would need back-ups for the trucks you need out on the roads in the first place. Each truck takes six hours to charge, so that would have be accounted for as well. 

“So we have six trucks that run snowplow routes. So if I’ve got to do six times nine, I’ve got to buy 54 trucks. My building is designed for six, so I need a new building to hold 54 trucks. I need 54 chargers. The Level One chargers are a couple hundred thousand a piece, so I’m looking at a new building. So there’s a $30 to $40 million building, plus 54 trucks at, let’s say, $700,000 a piece. That’s another $40 million.”

Then there’s dealing with the staff, having drivers out with a truck an hour at a time before having to return for another vehicle. They have to plug the used truck back in, load the other one up and go back out. He said what used to take three hours is most likely going to now take five or six hours. It’s a longer shift, or more help would have to be hired, he said. Overtime would have to be managed. 

“Instead of three-hour routes, we have three times as many people and three times as many trucks, and everybody goes out at the same time. And now the routes are only an hour long instead of three hours long,” he said, noting the strain the electric use would have. “Right now, a Level Three charger is a 90 amp, and I think the heavy-duty ones might be 90 to 120 amps a piece. So if you’ve got 54 of those, that’s almost five megawatts. And that’s probably three or four times what’s available in the grid at any given point.”

When Hens thinks back to the blizzard in December 2022, he knows the outcome would have been different with these future regulations in place.

“You know what's going to end up happening is the taxpayers are going to have to foot such an exorbitant bill, they're going to flip out. And really, what will be the straw that breaks the camel's back? It will be if there's a blizzard and people die because they're stuck in snow, or we can't plow because the plows don't push snow when it's five below zero in a 60-mile-an-hour wind,” he said. “We wouldn’t have been able to do what we did. We would have had people dying.”

Yet when members of the County Highway Superintendent Association have raised their concerns with the people establishing these regulations, they’re told, “We’ll figure it out.”

“It's so disjointed that you can't even really describe it to somebody. When people look at you like, what? What is Albany planning? you guys tell them this, and no one's listening to you. It's frustrating. And it honestly doesn't matter if it's a Republican county or a Democratic county. It is full on. None of the professionals in the industry think it makes any sense, and everyone's against it,” Hens said. “We had a presentation at one of our professional development conferences last January and the guy worked for Tesla, he’s an electronics guy. He was even saying electrifying the heavy-duty, over-the-road and construction fleet is not feasible at this point. 

"If you electrified every over-the-road truck, every single truck stop in the United States across the map, you would have to have a 40 to 50-megawatt power source at that truck stop so the trucks can recharge and keep going on the roads," he said. "It's hysterical. It's comical if you start throwing out the real numbers and the facts out there.”

He said that inside that climate-friendly vehicle are 20,000 pounds of batteries in a heavy-duty dump truck that will be dead and without any resale value in 10 years. 

To clarify, Hens is not against going green where possible and helping to save the planet. But there are ways that make more sense than using heavy-duty trucks, he said. 

“I want to be as green as the next person. There are a lot of places where the electric vehicles make sense, like the postal routes, or even like our facility maintenance vehicles for the county that just go from building to building to building all day,” he said. “Absolutely, those could be green, you know, plugged in, or some other green system. But you have to be practical about it.”

New York’s Advance Clean Truck Rule is to take effect Jan. 1, 2025. It will build upon existing regulations enacted in New York in 2012 by requiring all new sales of passenger cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs to be zero-emission by 2035. It would require an increasing percentage of new light-duty vehicle sales to be zero-emission vehicles (ZEV), starting with 35 percent of sales in the model year 2026, 68 percent of sales by 2030, and 100 percent of sales by 2035. 

New pollutant standards for passenger cars, light-duty trucks, and medium-duty vehicles with internal combustion engines from model years 2026 through 2034 would also be required. The regulation allows manufacturers to meet the emission requirements and successfully transition to cleaner vehicles.

State Assemblyman Steve Hawley has appealed to Gov. Kathy Hochul to delay the regulation’s enforcement after he has been contacted by several constituents that tried to purchase new trucks for their small businesses. 

“The regulations set to start in January 2025 are already affecting vehicle retailers to sell heavy-duty vehicles because there are so many unanswered questions for the consumers,” Hawley said in a letter to Hochul. “The Legislature passed, as part of the 2024-25 budget, a directive to the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority (ERDA) to conduct a highway and depot charging needs evaluation within the next 18 months. This study should be done prior to implementing mandates on an industry that is imperative to New York State.”

Hawley fully supports and agrees with the state Automobile Dealers Association and the Trucking Association, both which expressed concerns about the new regulation, he said. Both organizations just want a more thorough examination of the regulations before they are fully implemented, and Hawley asked that Hochul allow for the ERDA to complete its evaluation. 

Previously: New electric vehicle regs frustrate local waste hauler as he finds a way to keep moving forward

Think what you will about the use of artificial intelligence for making up silly random songs and possibly helping to write that late-night term paper, but there are certainly more cutting edge, time-saving uses for the technology.

Just ask Genesee County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens. He recommended that the county purchase a $30,000 subscription to an AI service that will analyze state Department of Transportation bridge and culvert reports, identify problem areas and help county personnel potentially whittle a job from 12 months down to two or three weeks.

"So after the first of the year, we're going to upload all of our bridge inspection reports to the company. And they're going to use the AI software to just quickly analyze all the pictures and the data. And there's, I mean, each bridge probably has a 15- to 20-page report that comes with it, they're gonna go through each report, look at all the pictures that AI literally scans the photos,” Hens said after Monday’s Public Service meeting. “And I don't know how exactly it works. Yes, the software can detect things. I mean, you know, a human could detect it as well if we were going through it, but it's literally 1000s and 1000s of pages. And we only have two or three people. And we have other stuff like a jail and a water project that are being built. So you just nip away at it. And you might get through two or three a week. But we've got 374 bridges and culverts that have got to be inspected. And then someone's got to go through those reports. So this is kind of a quick way. 

“Again, using AI software, which is brand new to the industry, to review all of those pictures and photos and then just spit out a report saying okay, you've got 20 bridges that have concrete abutments that need repairs, you've got 10 bridges that have bad bearings, you've got two bridges that should be painted, and here's the costs, and here's the locations,” he said. “It's got to be fixed. And it's pretty impressive. It literally will do in two to three weeks what it would take two to three humans to do all year long.”

He’s got faith in the company, Dynamic Infrastructure, which is just breaking into New York State, with Genesee County being one of the first counties to use this technology. He knows that some are using it in Iowa and Minnesota, with some counties here investigating it, “but I think we’re one of the fist ones in New York State” to be using it. 

“I’ve seen a demo multiple times. I’ve been through an hour-long presentation on it. It’s very impressive,” he said. “It’s gonna be, I think, a good tool for us, hopefully moving forward.”

It is about prioritizing, he said, and will also involve some strategy once he can see what kinds of repairs are needed and where.

“Because if you have similar repairs on bridges, but they're spread out in seven or eight different locations, you might just issue one contract. You know that the contractor might go from bridge to bridge to bridge fixing the exact same thing in six different locations, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than putting out six different contracts and then having six different contractors, piecemeal, yeah, so it's going to allow us to kind of, you know, kill two birds with one stone, and probably get a little bit of bang for our buck too, because you're gonna be hiring a contractor to do 10 locations as opposed to one at a time,” he said. “So I think it's gonna be a really powerful tool.”

The Public Service Committee agreed with his recommendation and moved the resolution on to Ways & Means, and then it will go to the full Legislature for a final vote that Hens recommends further analyzing county bridge and culvert inspection reports with artificial intelligence software to quantify and estimate repairs identified in the reports.

Hens has evaluated a proposal for this work and has recommended the purchase of an annual subscription to this service from Dynamic Infrastructure of New York, NY, at a cost not to exceed $30,000 for the period from Jan. 1, 2024, through Dec. 31, 2024.

He doesn't believe that it will be necessary to have a yearly subscription, so once the brunt of the work is done and details obtained, it can be canceled until the county needs updated information, he said. 

The contract will be funded by the Large Span Culverts Capital Project, which has an available balance of $2,739,357.

So far, it might be classified as a Christmas miracle, said County Manager Matt Landers.

With dozens of people trapped in vehicles for hours and cars all around Oakfield and Alabama buried in up to five feet of snow, emergency crews have yet to uncover any fatalities.

County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens said with hours of the storm yet to weather, and emergency responders working around the clock, he's still nervous about people's safety, but he, too, is hoping for a Christmas miracle.

Hens spent all night with County Highway workers running heavy loaders with big plows attached ahead of convoys of search and rescue crews, and he said the situation is the worst he's seen in his life.

"It is frustrating because we knew people really needed to help, and he just couldn't get to him," Hens said. "It seemed like no matter which way we went, whatever road we went down or whatever piece of equipment we took, it just was zero visibility. I mean, you could literally not see past the hood of your own car. Even though we had loaders with huge blades on them, and the Sheriff's were using MRAPs, the military vehicles that they've acquired, and we had tracked vehicles and groomers that are used for snowmobile trails and things like that, you just couldn't see where you're going. It was just extremely frustrating and scary."

Hens said in those conditions -- strong winds, zero visibility, 20 degrees below zero with windchill, a person outside without protective gear couldn't last long.

"You just can't see where you're going," Hens said. "It's disorienting. It's cold. The wind is ripping right through everything you've got on. Like I said, every little hair on your body accumulates ice and snow. If you didn't have goggles on, you're out of luck. The one time I jumped out (of my truck) to put a strap on a truck to pull somebody out, I forgot to put my goggles on, my eyelashes froze together. That was interesting."

While many people have been rescued, there's no way of knowing how many people haven't been rescued, hence the hope for a miracle. 

"I'm still relatively nervous about it because, I mean, there's still a lot of cars that have not been found yet," Hens said. "So there are still people in cars that have been there for a long time. There is the possibility that people got out of their cars and went looking for their own help, to a neighboring house or something like that and like I said, it is so disorienting. If you got out of your car last night, you wouldn't have known that there could have been a house 20 feet from you, and you wouldn't have seen it."

A large number of cars being located after getting stuck on Route 77, Route 63, Ledge Road, Judge Road, etc., have Canadian or out-of-state license plates. That's a factor of the state closing the Thruway and motorists relying on Google or Apple maps.  They got no warning that there was a travel ban in place or that a blizzard was passing over the very routes Google and Apple were suggesting.

"We probably would have had to have dealt with 30 or 40 cars, maybe, of our own people," Landers said. "But now we're having a couple of hundred cars. This is the GPS that was sending everybody right through Route 63, Route 77, right through the heart of the worst of the storm."

Landers said he isn't pointing a finger at the state.  He understands the need to close the Thruway, but there needs to be a better plan, and the state needs to lean on GPS mappers so that the maps do a better job of warning drivers of critically dangerous conditions.

"The solution can't simply be close the Thruway, and now it's a free for all into the small communities like Genesee County, Alabama and Oakfield," Landers said. "So it's something that I have reached out with the state about this morning. And again, it's not to be pointing the finger. It's just a matter that we have to learn from this because this situation was exasperated multiple times over by the fact that we get people from Los Angeles, people from Ohio, people from all over the place going on our back roads."

Hens said he hopes the governor's office will lean on Google to fix its technology.

"A lot of Canadians we talked to last night said, 'I was following my Google Map. I was following my Google Map, and I saw the red lines on the Google Map for traffic, and we just thought it was a traffic jam,'" Hens said. "They didn't know it was a lake effect snow band. And most people have never been in a lake effect snow band, so they didn't even know what it's like."

There are still hundreds of personnel -- volunteers and paid staff -- out on search and rescue missions.

Landers praised their dedication, hard work, and willingness to put their own safety at risk to help others.

He also marveled at all the residents and business owners who have been open to provide food and shelter to stranded travelers.  He said the county's human resources director, Anita Cleveland, took in a family of five overnight after the deputy who rescued them had become stuck in the snow.

Currently, there are 11 warming shelters open, and they are caring for 582 people.

"It's all hands on deck," Landers said.

And it's not over.

While the large lake effect snow band that hovered over Alabama and Oakfield most of the night has moved north, giving rescues some respite to get their work done, it's expected to drive south again, not only passing over those communities again but also into Batavia.

"The band is forecast to slowly move south across the county, I think, beginning about two or three o'clock this afternoon and will be kind of centered around the county, more of a traditional Airport, Batavia, kind of alignment for most of the afternoon and early evening from what the National Weather Service says," Hens said. "With snowfall rates of one to two inches an hour, so I would say from my experience, Darien, Pembroke, Alexander, and Batavia will take the brunt of it from a severity standpoint, and then it'll taper off. It looks like conditions will deteriorate for most of the center part of the county later this afternoon."

With the storm expected to last well into the night and perhaps into Sunday morning, Hens isn't just nervous about the safety of people out on the roads, he's nervous about remaining operations. People are tired and equipment is being heavily used.

"I'm just nervous that we're gonna have equipment breaking," Hens said. "You know, we've been using it pretty heavy now for 24 hours straight in some pretty wicked conditions. ... I'm nervous that someone's gonna get hurt or equipment is gonna get broken, and then we're going to have the band come back through, and we're going to be caught sideways a little bit, but fingers crossed, like Matt said, we need a little bit of a Christmas miracle."

With a high degree of concern for people trapped in their cars in the area of Route 77 and Judge Road, County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens, along with three county highway personnel driving three heavy loaders/plow trucks, are leaving Batavia in an attempt to rescue them.

No other emergency personnel in fire trucks, rescue trucks, or patrol cars have been able to reach them.

"I've got three highway guys putting their lives at risk, my life at risk, to try and save them, but I would feel bad if we didn't try," Hens said.

Hens was just leaving the City of Batavia, driving behind the highway trucks and said visibility was already down to nearly zero. He passed a semi-truck stuck in the snow in front of Tops.  There was about a foot of snow in that location.

Deputies have reported drifts of snow as high as five feet surrounding the cars that are stuck in Alabama.

"We have a pretty high level of concern," Hens said. "Some people have been out there nine, 10 hours. I know there are people who are hypothermic at this point.  I'm not sure we will be able to reach them.  It's just such bad visibility. I'm not even sure we will be able to get there, to be honest."

There has been a heavy, large lake-effect snow band stretching from Lake Erie into Alabama and Oakfield all day.  The National Weather Service reports it is likely to be in place until at least midnight.

"It might be there until midnight tomorrow," Hens said. "This storm is going to revival '77 in its intensity.  It's maybe not as wide or as broad but for people under the snow band, it will be."

Photo: File photo of Tim Hens from 2018 at Genesee County Legislature meeting.

UPDATE: here's a four-second video from Tim Hens showing conditions on the road to Alabama.

When it comes to the Genesee County Airport, Tim Hens sees himself as a public servant with a private sector mentality.

And that philosophy has worked quite well over the past 20 years, according to the county highway superintendent, as the airport has been upgraded and modernized without a single dollar coming from county property tax revenue.

Hens gave The Batavian a tour of the sprawling facility along East Saile Drive in the Town of Batavia last week, pointing out the various buildings and providing insight into the funding of the operation that currently houses 68 aircraft, including single-engine planes, helicopters and “decent sized corporate jets.”

The county’s plan back in 2001 was to privatize the airport, Hens recalled.

“We were going to put the management of the airport out to bid to see if we can get a company to do it,” he said. “And our bids were out on the street, literally, as 911 happened. And if you remember back to 911, the whole airline industry and aviation industry just crumbled and shut down. It was not a good time to have a bid package out for airport management.”

Hens, who had recently been hired (he’s also the county engineer), said the county did not receive any responses to their request for proposal.

“So, by default, the county stepped in,” he said. “And I proposed that we hire some county employees and manage it. And luckily, it has worked out very, very well. We actually ended up sticking with that process for the last 20 years.”

As a result, Hens is able to use his business management skills to market the facility, assist in the bookkeeping, filing sales tax and supervising maintenance and upkeep.

“It’s like owning your own little business,” he said. “We've got employees to manage, we're selling fuel, we have to look at pricing, we’ve got to look at our competitors. It’s so different than my highway job where it's just fix what we got and plow the snow – and we do plow snow out here, too.”

Ownership of the airport enables the county to control its own destiny, Hens said.

“We have found that we could take in all the revenue, as opposed to paying it out to a management company or a private business to run the airport,” he said. “We were getting the full benefit of the revenue and could control our expenses. Plus, things move much faster – such as expanding the runway and other business decisions.”

The staff at the airport (other than Jeff and Carol Boshart of Boshart Enterprises; see accompanying story) consists of two full-time employees – manager Jason Long and airport attendant Ron Stringham – and a couple of part-timers who fill in during holidays and weekends.

The airport features a two-story main terminal that, along with the main hangar, was built in 2015 as part of a $4.9 million project, Hens said. The county received a grant for $300,000 and the remainder was bonded over 20 years.

The main terminal features a foyer, training rooms, pilot lounge, P&L Air flight school, break rooms and several offices. The main hangar, which is used by Boshart Enterprises, measures 100 by 120 feet with a 30-foot high ceiling.

Located to the west are six corporate hangars – three of which are owned by Genesee County and three that are privately owned – and five T-hangars that were built in 1997, 2008, 2011, 2015 and 2020. Those contain 46 separate smaller hangars, with one of them rented by Mercy Flight for its helicopters.

Hens said the facility is part of the county’s transportation and infrastructure operation, and is utilized by numerous local companies, including Milton CAT, Tompkins Financial, National Grid, Western New York Energy in Medina, Six Flags Darien Lake, HP Hood and Lamb Farms.

“It gets way more use than people think,” said Hens, an Air Force veteran who attended the Air Force Academy in Colorado – and has flown jets. “The best thing about it is that zero property taxes are put toward the airport.

“People say they are funding the hobbies of the rich. That’s not true. It’s a self-sustaining, self-paid-for operation. Since 2001, Genesee County has received $32 million in federal and state aid for the airport.”

He said that 95 percent of the funding is covered in most cases.

“The money is going to go somewhere, it might as well come here,” he said, adding that funding for the facility is based entirely on airline user fees through an airport trust fund.

“Our fuel sales and rental fees pay for the airport operation. We are showing an annual surplus of $80,000 to $100,000, and that money goes back exclusively for airport expenses and improvements.”

Hens said the county is planning to develop more of the land at the west end. In September, it applied for a $13 million grant to build a large hangar at the corner of State Street Road. It would be 100 percent funded by New York State through the Upstate Airport Economic Development and Revitalization initiative.

“It’s a ‘If we build it they will come sort of thing.’ We need the hangar for larger jets of corporate site selectors who are representing businesses looking to locate here.”

Genesee County’s ability to run its own airport and turn a profit hasn’t gone unnoticed by officials of other counties, Hens said.

“I think, to this day, we are one of the few airports in upstate New York that make money. We get a lot of calls and I've done presentations as far away as Lake George as to what are you doing at your airport? How come you are successful? So, I think you're seeing more and more municipalities get involved in their airport operations.”

Although the county owns the airport, there is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to come in at the main terminal.

“We’ve got a small space carved out on the second floor for a café and sandwich shop with a seating area,” Hens said. “We’re looking for someone to run it.”

Photo at top: The main terminal at the Genesee County Airport on East Saile Drive. Photos by Mike Pettinella.

The main terminal lobby and County Line Service office.

Based aircraft at the Genesee County Airport, including a plane from the Civil Air Patrol.

T-Hangars. Forty-six individual units are rented at the airport.

The main terminal and main hangar were built in 2015.

View from second floor of the main terminal, looking northeast at fuel tanks and runway.

During the Public Service Committee meeting Tuesday, Highway Superintendent Tim Hens updated members of the County Legislature on the work of his department.

On funding, the proposed county road budget for 2019 is $5,527,130. Asphalt prices have increased 20 percent in 2018. Salt prices are up 16 percent. Gas prices have gone from $2 a gallon to $2.35 and climbing, though prices should stabilize in 2019, Hens said. The department has 57 employees (54.25 full-time equivalents), working in administration, highway, parks, airport, fleet, and facility maintenance.     

Besides a share of the general fund, the department receives grants for projects. State aid in 2018 has been $1.6 million, plus $382,193 from the PAVE-NY fund, $240,498 for extreme weather recovery.

Federal aid, Hens said, is still limited.

The county, including applications from towns, has 31 applications made to BRIDGE-NY, with an announcement for funding expected in the fall. 

Hens anticipates needing $2,131,466 for roach machinery in 2019. The department is making lease payments on a dozer, loader, an excavator, and needs a wheel loader, pickup, 2.5-ton truck, and mid-sized track excavator.

The county is responsible for 260 miles of highway. There are 92 bridges longer than 20 feet and 278 bridges and culverts longer than five feet and less than 20 feet. 

"We need to replace two bridges a year to keep our heads above water and we have been doing one bridge a year based on available federal funding," Hens said. 

The rating for the Lyons Street Bridge has been reduced from eight tons to seven. Pratt Road Bridge has been reduced from 19 tons to seven and is scheduled for replacement next year.

Reconstruction of the Stroh Road Bridge is nearly complete and it should open Oct. 1, three weeks ahead of schedule. 

Four culverts in the county of less than 20-foot span were replaced this summer.

The county also completed paving or overlay projects on Indian Falls Road, North Lake Road, North Byron Road, Prole Road Extension, South Street in Pavilion, Colby Road, Hickox, Walker, and Gillate roads in Alexander. 

These projects often included shoulder widening to 30 feet.

The widening has gone over well with residents in those areas, Hens said, who now have more room for walking and biking.

Much of the material used for this work is recycled asphalt from the work at the County Airport to replace the runway and taxiways. This has produced more than 16,000 tons of asphalt for the county to process and reuse.

"It's cheap material," Hens said. "But it's not free. We still have to process it and handle it."

As for county parks, Hens praised the work of Shannon Lyaski, conservation education program coordinator, and Paul Osborn, parks director.

"We've seen year-over-year growth in the environmental programs," Hens said. "We've hit record numbers for revenue and people attending events at the County Park." 

He said Lyaski has done a good job with programming for events at the Interpretive Nature Center.

The revenue generated by these programs cover her salary, Hens said.

As for Osborn, Hens said he's a master at rounding up volunteer workers and scavenging for material for structures in the parks.

"He flips over rocks and pulls people out and he's got people down there cleaning, cutting and trimming," Hens said.

One of the annual programs at the County Park is Camp Hard Hat, which brings in high school students in to build a project under the supervision of a BOCES instructor.

This year, the crew built a footbridge using guardrails Osborn scavenged from the old Stroh Road Bridge.

Attendance has also been up at the DeWitt Recreation Area.

Hens said work on a bridge through the wetlands in the park for the Ellicott Trail should be completed by fall. The county is waiting on the Town of Batavia to finish its part of the trail and Hens is hopeful the trail will open next spring.

For facilities, significant projects in 2018 include a new jail elevator, a security system, new fire alarm for the County Courthouse, and completion of an energy performance contract. For 2019, the county is waiting on a grant for the stonework on the facade of the jail building and a grant is pending for energy upgrades at the Animal Shelter.

In the 20 years since Hens became highway superintendent, the County has invested $30 million in capital improvements, which includes new hangars, a new terminal, and a new runway and taxiways. The funds were all generated by grants or fees for use of the airport and fuel so there have been no direct costs to local taxpayers.

There are 21 jobs at the airport, including private employers, and generates $2.35 million in economic impact.

The airport has brought in more money than it cost in 16 of the past 17 years. Hens anticipates the airport will only break even in 2018 due to a prolonged winter and construction projects.

Pete Zeliff is building a new hangar for corporate jets, which should help generate more revenue for the county through additional fuel sales.

Hens has also been heavily involved in public water projects with several new projects starting this year and more planned for 2019.

PHOTO: Tim Hens in the foreground and Laura Wadhams, the county's new assistant engineer, who started her job a little over a week ago.

County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens is about to fill a role occupied by two of his predecessors -- NYS County Highway Superintendents Association.

What's unique, perhaps, is that Laura Mullen, a principle financial clerk with the highway department since 1957, has work for both of the previous presidents from Genesee County.

That would be Joe Amedick, who served in 1987 and Bob Carrier, who served in 1959.

Now part-time, Hens finds Mullen indispensable.

"She knows where thr vendor files are from ions ago," Hens said. "She knows where bridge files are, road files are. Any bit of information I need, she knows exactly what box it is in in the storeroom."

When Hens started his job 16 years ago, there were no computers. He said he couldn't work like that, so his computer was the first in the department. 

Mullen, already with more than 30 years on the job, jumped right in with automation and took classes at Genesee Community College on her own time, at her own expense, to learn Microsoft Office.

Hens said Mullen will fill in wherever she's needed.

He has his own kind of seniority going. At 16 years on the job, he's the fourth or fifth most senior county highway superintendent among the 57 counties in the state.

The association, he said, serves an important role in helping the state's highway departments and public works departments share information and best practices as well as lobbying Albany to maintain funding for roads and bridges.

If a member has a question, they jump online, ask it, and might get 30 answers.

"You learn something from other counties or something that somebody has already done and that saves you a lot of time and a lot of hassle," Hens said.

County Highway Superintendent Tim Hens made a presentation Monday to the Public Service Committee.  We asked him to write a summary of his presenation to go along with the slide show he created.

Click here to view the slide show.

Here's Tim's message:

I took time from my annual department review yesterday to make a presentation that focused on some of the funding challenges we face as well as some of the brighter highlights from the year so far.

The initial portion of the presentation focused on the difference between capital improvements and preventative maintenance.  Generally speaking, a capital improvement is a significant improvement or total reconstruction of the roadway, whereas preventative maintenance is only a surface treatment or temporary improvement meant to extend the service life of the underlying pavement.  Preventative maintenance is used to keep "good roads good" and it is the best bang for the buck when applied at the appropriate time.  If you were to plot a line of pavement conditions over time, it would gradually drop, and after about 7-8 years, it would start to fall away quite quickly.  The goal with preventative maintenance is to catch the pavement before that line starts to get too steep.  That way we can take a typical 15 year pavement life and extend it out to maybe 30-35 years before it needs a capital improvement, which is very expensive in comparison.

The next phase of the conversation moved on to the cost of materials and construction in general.  Higher material prices have impacted both preventative maintenance and capital improvement costs, limiting the amount of work that can be performed each year.

The presentation then moved back to a quick overview of techniques that are used for preventative maintenance, a comparison of their costs, and a comparison of what was performed in 2012 versus what we should be doing to improve the condition ratings of our system.  As it stands we are generally treading water with our highway system and we are losing ground with regard to our bridges, especially the shorter span bridges which are not eligible for federal aid.  Tighter budgets as a result of unfunded mandates on the county and increasing material prices (mostly due to the cost of oil) are requiring the county to defer maintenance and improvements.  For every dollar deferred, the county will need to spend between $4 and $6 to get the same result (road condition) down the road.  We are falling further and further behind.

When is comes to bridges; the deficencies are significant.  The county owns and maintains 341 bridges.  Of these bridges, only 95 are eligible for federal aid.  The remainder are completely reliant upon local funding and very limited state aid.  More than half the bridges were built prior to 1960 and 53% of the bridges are considered functionally obsolete or structurally deficient by federal standards.  Our average bridge condition rating stands at 4.98 (out of 7) where anything below a 5 is considered in poor condition.  The cost just to support federal aid subsidized replacements is likely to exceed $600,000 per year if we replace the two bridges per year to stay ahead of the deterioration.  Factoring in the cost to replace short-span bridges and the total cost over the next ten years is likely to exceed $10-15 million.  The county currently does not have the capability to fund this need .

The Highway Department will be engaging engineering consultants this winter to analyze the inventory of short span structures the county owns, develop a plan of attack and design a few cookie-cutter solutions so that some of these smaller bridges may be replaced in-house to save money.  There is a need to bond some of the replacments over the long-term so that future taxpayers who will benefit from today's improvements may share in the cost as well.

Some quick slides were shown on the cost of Snow & Ice Control for the county.  A majority of county milage is plowed by Town Highway Departments under contract.  The contract rate is determined using a formula based off the three year average snowfall for the area.  The warm winter in 2011-12 adjusted this rate significantly and the proposed rate to the Towns for the 2012-13 season is much lower.  A quick history of rate adjustments waas presented; as well as a slide showing the limited amount of overtime expended by the county versus what was budgeted as a result of the warm weather.

The presentation ended with a few slides of the DeWitt Recreation Area and the improvements made there as a result of the open winter and available labor and equipment from the Highway Department.