Salt Usage

[JBMcB]

Should the Metro-Detroit area reduce the use of salt ?

Road salts known under various chemical compounds sodium chloride, calcium chloride, potassium chloride,
magnesium chloride, and ferrocyanide salts) are toxic.

Everthing is toxic in the right concentration. What concentrations are we talking about? The linked article just talks about rivers, mostly near urban areas, but no mention on what the effects of the increased amounts are. What are the concentrations in the lakes themselves, where we get drinking water from?

[old guy]

Or since I live in cheese country.......Wisconsin Uses Cheesy Water to De-Ice Wintery Roads | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

[Hermod]

Lots of folks in Detroit still had coal furnaces when I was a kid. They would use the cinders on their driveways and sidewalks to give traction. It made a mess as well.

[Willi]

Salt concentration can be massive, especially when large parking lots pile snow into mountains, and it begins to rain. Chloride ions are nasty, attacking organic items and inorganic stuff as well.

Everything has consequences, even the Beet juice runoff acts as a nutrient for germs killing aquatic lifeforms. Let's think a little more, drive a LOT slower, and plan ahead for slower drive time in the winter. Eighty-five miles per hour may not be possible 365 and 24/7. Slow down , crash less.

[RO_Resident]

In general, public works departments are trying to do a better job of managing their salt usage. Partially, it is due to the environmental effects of salt, partially it is due to the cost of salt.

In the past, they might be dumping salt on the road 'just to show that they were doing something'. More salt meant more safety, right?

Now, they recognize that dumping salt on roads when it is 3 degrees outside and 30 mph gusts is going to result in most of the salt ending up in the gutter.

Saw a presentation from the Farmington Hills DPS director not too long ago. They have changed their strategy for dealing with snow in a big way. Among the things they are doing: are calibrating their spreaders to know exactly how much salt they are putting on the road; they are pretreating the road with brine or beet juice [[depending on conditions) to keep snow from sticking; they are also brining the salt as they spread it to keep the salt on the road.

They also have sensors on their vehicles to measure pavement temperature to make changes to their treatments on the fly. They were considering putting the temperature sensors on other municipal vehicles [[police, etc.) to get an even better sense of the changing conditions during storms.

[Gpwrangler]

Salt concentration can be massive, especially when large parking lots pile snow into mountains, and it begins to rain. Chloride ions are nasty, attacking organic items and inorganic stuff as well.

Everything has consequences, even the Beet juice runoff acts as a nutrient for germs killing aquatic lifeforms. Let's think a little more, drive a LOT slower, and plan ahead for slower drive time in the winter. Eighty-five miles per hour may not be possible 365 and 24/7. Slow down , crash less.

Salt is the most economical way to deal with road icing. It saves lives and gets traffic moving efficiently, and quickly.

[Willi]

I disagree .
Most economical for society would be a huge
reduction in allowable speed on snow days.
Ticket people severely and harshly for driving
inappropriately for the weather conditions.
Far too many people think it's "" safe"" because
a road was plowed and salted a bit.
It is a FALSE sense of security, an illusion.
More patience, slower speed saves lives, not salt.

There should be NO use of quickly on snow days

[JBMcB]

Salt concentration can be massive, especially when large parking lots pile snow into mountains, and it begins to rain. Chloride ions are nasty, attacking organic items and inorganic stuff as well.

How massive? What are the concentrations in the great lakes themselves, where the drinking water comes from? What concentration should we target, allowing for natural salinity? If we don't know the extent of the problem we don't know if a corrective action plan is having any effect or not.

You're right in that chloride ions are very reactive. The side effect of that is they don't last long in the "wild" - they react quickly and bind up with other atoms. You can see the result of this in grass along the sides of roads. With all the salt we dump on roads, you might think that the stuff that gets plowed up on to median grasses would kill all the vegetation, but it doesn't.

[Gpwrangler]

I disagree .
Most economical for society would be a huge
reduction in allowable speed on snow days.
Ticket people severely and harshly for driving
inappropriately for the weather conditions.
Far too many people think it's "" safe"" because
a road was plowed and salted a bit.
It is a FALSE sense of security, an illusion.
More patience, slower speed saves lives, not salt.

There should be NO use of quickly on snow days

Not sure where you drive but 15 mph on a freeway won't fly around here when a little salt will melt all the snow. I don't need a 3 hour ride to work when it's 30 degrees and it snowed 1".

Keep saltin' boys!

[Honky Tonk]

Could you pass the salt please?

[Willi]

People forget Oakland County has 5 rivers.
The runoff from impervious surfaces kills
natural macroinvertabetes in the creeks
streams and rivers BEFORE it gets to the
Great Lakes.

If you think it has zero effect,
perhaps you slept thru high school science.

Chloride [[Cl-) is completely soluble and very mobile. Chloride is toxic to aquatic life and impacts vegetation and wildlife. There is no natural process by which chlorides are broken down, metabolized, taken up, or removed from the environment. In 2008, New Hampshire listed 19 water bodies impaired by chloride; in 2010 that number increased to 40. Trends show that chloride levels continue to rise with increasing use of road salt.

The transport of sodium [[Na+) in the environment is not as prominent as chloride due to ion exchange; however, this exchange can alter the soil chemistry by replacing and releasing nutrients into the groundwater and surface water changing soil structure and impacting the aquatic environment. Contamination of sodium in drinking water is a concern for individuals restricted to low-sodium diets due to hypertension [[high blood pressure). Wildlife is also prone to high sodium levels by ingesting salt or drinking water runoff from snow and ice melt.

Additives to road salt like ferrocyanide, which is used as an anti-caking compound in large salt supplies, can have impacts on both the environment and human health due to cyanide ions being released by certain types of bacteria as well as from exposure to sunlight. The USEPA in 2003 added this compound to its list of toxic pollutants under section 307[[a) of the Clean Water Act. Other potential components and impurities of road salt can include calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, aluminum, lead, phosphorus, manganese, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium, and cadmium.

[Gpwrangler]

People forget Oakland County has 5 rivers.
The runoff from impervious surfaces kills
natural macroinvertabetes in the creeks
streams and rivers BEFORE it gets to the
Great Lakes.

If you think it has zero effect,
perhaps you slept thru high school science.

Chloride [[Cl-) is completely soluble and very mobile. Chloride is toxic to aquatic life and impacts vegetation and wildlife. There is no natural process by which chlorides are broken down, metabolized, taken up, or removed from the environment. In 2008, New Hampshire listed 19 water bodies impaired by chloride; in 2010 that number increased to 40. Trends show that chloride levels continue to rise with increasing use of road salt.

The transport of sodium [[Na+) in the environment is not as prominent as chloride due to ion exchange; however, this exchange can alter the soil chemistry by replacing and releasing nutrients into the groundwater and surface water changing soil structure and impacting the aquatic environment. Contamination of sodium in drinking water is a concern for individuals restricted to low-sodium diets due to hypertension [[high blood pressure). Wildlife is also prone to high sodium levels by ingesting salt or drinking water runoff from snow and ice melt.

Additives to road salt like ferrocyanide, which is used as an anti-caking compound in large salt supplies, can have impacts on both the environment and human health due to cyanide ions being released by certain types of bacteria as well as from exposure to sunlight. The USEPA in 2003 added this compound to its list of toxic pollutants under section 307[[a) of the Clean Water Act. Other potential components and impurities of road salt can include calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, aluminum, lead, phosphorus, manganese, copper, zinc, nickel, chromium, and cadmium.

Has anyone worked on a viable alternative to salt? Just not treating the roads is not an option.

Everything we do affects the environment in some way. We need sensible alternatives. Sorry, but everyone driving slow will not work. Imagine what Detroit streets looked like last winter, everywhere.

[canuck]

Not sure where you drive but 15 mph on a freeway won't fly around here when a little salt will melt all the snow. I don't need a 3 hour ride to work when it's 30 degrees and it snowed 1".

Keep saltin' boys!

Them road crews are the salt of the earth.

[DTWflyer]

I'm all for saving the enivornment and doing things right, but present a viable alternative.

Not using salt and "doing nothing" is not a viable option. I am glad to see that communities are getting smarter about the use and application of de-icing materials. From both a cost and environmental standpoint.

Not using anything to treat our roads it not an option. Are society relies upon mobility. Being iced-over and minor accumulations of snowing bringing everything to a standstill are not an option. Even going slow on untreated roads isn't an option with ice. Snow driven over will compact and freeze/thaw into ice.

[Willi]

Another strategy is to use "anti-icing" — spreading salt and other de-icers before a winter storm, in an attempt to stop ice formation before it starts. This can reduce the amount of chemicals used throughout a storm; the EPA cites one estimate that anti-icing can reduce total de-icer usage by 41 to 75 percent.

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/sourcew...inghighway.pdf

People need to learn convenience has a COST.
It usually bites folks one way or another.

[Willi]

Tonight
Chance Snow
Low 27
A chance of snow showers before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 27. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light west northwest after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Don't salt the hell out everything this winter

[JBMcB]

People forget Oakland County has 5 rivers.
The runoff from impervious surfaces kills
natural macroinvertabetes in the creeks
streams and rivers BEFORE it gets to the
Great Lakes.

Probably, but again, at what effect at what concentration? What do we need to shoot for?

Chloride [[Cl-) is completely soluble and very mobile.

What? That sentence makes no sense. Chloride is soluble and highly reactive. If it's soluble then it's mobile.

There is no natural process by which chlorides are broken down, metabolized, taken up, or removed from the environment.

Now you're just making stuff up. Chlorine ions react with nearly everything - especially base metals. They are absolutely metabolized - your body uses chloride reduction all over the place - especially in your stomach and immune systems. They also readily dissipate into the atmosphere - which is why you need to continually dump chlorine into your pool.

In 2008, New Hampshire listed 19 water bodies impaired by chloride; in 2010 that number increased to 40. Trends show that chloride levels continue to rise with increasing use of road salt.

What does impaired mean? At what concentration does impairment occur?

I'm assuming you have some reliable studies handy, I'd like to see the links. I tried finding them but all I found were nutjob websites with no references, loosely throwing around science-y jargon.

[cjd]

I'm assuming you have some reliable studies handy, I'd like to see the links. I tried finding them but all I found were nutjob websites with no references, loosely throwing around science-y jargon.

What was stated was actually from here, copied and pasted in the thread without attribution. It's a lot of pseudo-chemistry, that is, a lot of fancy sounding words trying to impress without actually being used accurately or precisely.

It's hard to tell if the NH DEQ is trying to win the reader with an appeal to authority based on official sounding themes and words or, sometimes, these agencies take what their chemists write and try to translate it into something they think a 'layman' will be able to consume -- when in fact they've turned it into unreadable gobbledy-gook.

[Willi]

Some folks didn't pass chemistry class
Brush up before lying in print on the internet

Chloride Ions are most definitely a waterway issue each winter for many Northern States.

http://www.oseh.umich.edu/environment/wintermaint.shtml

Once chlorides are introduced to groundwater systems, they accumulate over time and are very costly to remove.

[rjlj]

Salt does not melt ice, it only lowers the freezing point of the water.Pure water freezes at 32°F [[0°C). Water with salt [[or any other substance in it) will freeze at some lower temperature. Just how low this temperature will be depends on the de-icing agent. Magnesium chloride works down to 5°F while calcium chloride works down to -20°F.
Also, sand only provides traction and does not melt ice or lower the freezing point of ice.
On a side note, in certain countries, you must have snow tires on your vehicle by law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_tire

Actually, in many situations sand does melt ice. I used sand for years on the long unpaved private road I used to live on and it was far superior in melting ice and providing traction. A light dusting of sand provided immediate traction and collected the heat from the sun to melt the snow and ice. I tried salt as well, and it worked, but I needed to use 4-5 times as much to provide the same results. Sand also provides traction is extreme cold, when it's at or below 20 degrees the effectiveness of salt is greatly reduced and when it gets a bit below 0 degrees it quits working altogether!

There's advantages and disadvantages to both.

[Willi]

As salt dissolves in water, it breaks down into two ions:
one sodium ion and one chloride ion per sodium chloride molecule.
These ions are foreign particles in the water,
and they disperse water molecules,
pushing them apart, and making it harder for ice to form.
As salt is added, the freezing point drops.


In the real world, on roads and sidewalks,
NaCl can melt ice down to 15 degrees F

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