Scientists say we have to stop salting icy roads, sidewalks

[Throck]

https://www.audacy.com/wben/news/national/scientists-say-we-have-to-stop-salting-icy-roads-sidewalks

When freezing temps bring icy roads, experts say the best way to stop potentially deadly car accidents and pile ups is with de-icing salts containing sodium chloride, calcium chloride, and magnesium chloride. However, scientists are saying that salts may do more harm than good.

A new review published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment claims that using de-icing salts damages freshwater sources.

Scientists who worked on the review looked at the hazards of using salt to make driving safer and found that the substances are contaminating streams and lakes while building up in wetlands.

Now scientists are arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency’s thresholds need to be raised to protect life in freshwater systems effectively.

In their review, scientists continued saying, “there is also an urgent need to understand how freshwater organisms respond to novel chemical cocktails generated from road salt salinization.”

more.................

So nobody ever asked where does the salt go after you dump it on the road or why did my car dissolve?

[MiHale]

1. They are working on the problem...

Some of the fixes only lower the salt content but that’s better not perfect better…
Using Sugar Beet juice or pickle brine .

https://www.inverse.com/article/39632-beet-juice-melt-snow-ice

“In the Great White North, snowstorms are a matter of life and death. Or, at least, that’s what it looks like these days, as a new snow-clearing method is making some streets look like the site of a bloody massacre. This week in Calgary, Alberta, city officials took to the snowy streets with a mixture of salt and beet juice, which they say is a more eco-friendly and cost-effective way to de-ice roads than using only salt.“
More at link

https://www.cjonline.com/story/news/state/2019/12/27/kdot-using-beet-juice-to-clear-ice-on-roadways/2001717007/

During the past century, beets were a staple Kansas crop. Although the industry has faltered in Kansas, beet juice is once again an important commodity for the sunflower state.

We are using beet juice to treat our icy roadways, and we are importing the juice from Iowa.

The Kansas Department of Transportation found beet juice, when mixed with brine, helps the department use less salt and makes icy roadways safer. According to KDOT, based on the level of concentration, beet juice mixed with brine can help control ice when it is as cold as 0 degrees.


More at link

[lapfog_1]

2. we used to carry bags of sand in the trunk

not only to provide more weight on the back wheels but if stuck, open a bag and use to provide some traction. Doesn't melt the snow but it worked.

Any downside to simply using sand? Environmentally speaking.

[gab13by13]

4. Nope,

Sand is the main ingredient in making a glass bottle along with a little soda ash. A glass bottle is the safest, biodegradable, and I worked making the machines that made bottles.

The drawback to a bottle is that plastic is more convenient and cheaper to make.

[left-of-center2012]

3. Seems to me when I was growing up in Pennsylvania in the '50s

I think they put ash on the roads??
As in ashes,
but that was so long ago I don't know where they would have got the ashes?



'course it was coal country.

[gab13by13]

5. Oh yes we did on grandpa's driveway,

we put lots of ashes on the driveway, don't remember about putting it on the main roads.

[abqtommy]

6. When I lived in Michigan's Upper Peninsula the combination snow plow/sanding trucks

operated every day, all day long. I like that approach much better than salting.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Folks at Dow tried using urea, years ago.

But that would create algal blooms.

[zipplewrath]

8. My father, the biochemist

He used urea if I recall correctly to melt the ice, saying it was more "grass friendly". Dunno if he was correct. Furthermore, it may have been flooding the environment with excess nitrogen for all I know. But I suspect there is something better (albeit probably more expensive) that could be used.

[applegrove]

9. I grew up in a neighborhood that threw pebbles on the roads instead of salt.

The local maintenance crews would sweep the stones to the side of the road (they naturally accumulated on the sides of the roads aswell) and vacuum them up with a big truck vacuum come spring, to be used again the next year. Yes we were driving on inches of snow but that is what snow tires are for. And the pebbles (smaller than 1/4 inch and jagged in shape, not rounded), provided traction on icy days. I would recommend it. When we joined the city they started salting. This was Ottawa.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. Yup, I've lost 2 cars in my life to rust caused by winter road salt here in New York

There was nothing else wrong with them, they both still ran just fine, but they would no longer pass inspection.