WASHINGTON—All plows can do here is push snow from one spot to another, displacing it into shoulder-high escarpments, walling off parked cars, confounding pedestrians and blocking drivers' lines of sight.

William Howland has his own plan. In Lot 25, a vacant yard bordered by the Anacostia River, a derelict hospital and a congressional cemetery, Mr. Howland, the head of the D.C. Department of Public Works, is building a snow mountain. Around 15 dump trucks an hour arrive and unload their cargo, a gray-white mass of snow, sand,...