PORTAGE | Early snows this fall have put leaf removal behind schedule.

But Portage Street Department Superintendent Chuck Haskell said crews are still working daily to pick up piles of fall foliage raked to the streets by homeowners.

"We are going to continue until we are done with them. Last year we went until May," said Haskell.

The first early November snow came just after trees had finished dropping their leaves. It caused Haskell's department to change its strategy to pick up leaves, he said.

Normally leaves are picked up on the same days as trash. However, when the snow came, it hit the east side of the city hardest, dropping more than 8 inches of the white stuff on leaf piles.

Department workers moved to the west side of the city where only an inch or 2 fell and concentrated on those areas. They are now moving toward the east.

A problem, Haskell said, is that many of the leaf piles are still snow covered and frozen. The department's leaf vacuums can be damaged if workers attempt to pick up frozen piles. Those are being skipped right now with the objective to come back and remove them when they defrost.

Another problem has been the changing over of equipment from leaf pick up to snow removal. The process of changing one truck takes about half a day, said Haskell.

Because of the demands on all three divisions of the department - streets, sanitation and recycling -- Haskell said he doesn't have the manpower to move people from one task to another without causing problems. For example, he said, if he moved people off trash pick up to man leaf vacuums, that would likely put the department behind in trash pickup.

Haskell said the city has 147 miles of streets on which leaves are picked up. Right now they are able to clear 10 to 15 miles per day.

"These guys are doing a heck of a job. They get no praise, just complaints. People need to be patient. We will perform the service," he said.

Haskell also asked that residents keep the leaves on their property and not in the streets because if the leaves are washed down the street by rain or pushed down by a snowplow, it can cause problems in stormwater drains.