A municipal loader is seen on Tuesday, set against a massive, 20 foot tall, half acre pile of snow. Photo by Michael Theis/Chronicle.

The Corporation of Shepherdstown spent $26,000 to remove the massive piles of snow left by the back-to-back nor’easters, which battered the area this month.

Shepherdstown’s municipal Accounting Clerk Pat Dowell, in a telephone interview on Wednesday, said the $26,000 number includes all payroll and contracting expenses, as well as other snow-related items.

“We had a conservative budget of $10,000 for snow removal this year,” said Dowell, “The Finance Committee will have to revise the budget and reallocate expenses.”

According to Shepherdstown Town Clerk Amy Boyd, the Finance Committee’s next meeting has been moved back one day to Wednesday, March 3, at 9:45 a.m. at Town Hall at 104 N. King St.

Mayor Jim Auxer said that contracting expenses were running $400 an hour. The Corporation of Shepherdstown is paying the Hedgesville-based construction firm Custom Contracting to operate two large dump trucks and three loaders for the snow removal effort.

In an interview last week, town Public Works Director Frank Welch said that Shepherdstown is also running out of places to put the removed snow.

Officials normally move cleared snow to a pile on the property of the municipal sewage treatment plant on East High Street, but as of Feb. 16 the lot was nearing capacity. During daylight hours, a near constant train of dump trucks empty their wintry refuse therein, adding to a massive (and growing) 20-foot-tall, half-acre pile of snow and ice.