Every time it snows in Seattle or Portand, transplanted Easterners awake aghast at the lack of effective winter maintenance and appalled at the toll in crushed cars and avoidable injuries. So it was last week when Mother Nature tried to award Seattle with an unaccustomed White Christmas. Seattle Times blogger Lynne Varner , an admitted refuge from the East Coast, spoke for what we know were thousands in the "silent majority" who would like to see high winter operations levels of service in their communitiies:

I believe in reducing waste, recyling and reusing anything with an iota of life left in it, but I'll risk my environmentalist credentials to support the use of salt.

Not the savory grains harvested off the shores of exotic locales like France and Hawaii, resplendent in their shades of blush, cream, gray or charcoal. I'm talking about their tougher, more common cousin, the salt used to de-ice sidewalks and roadways. Our region is underneath a blanket of white and a policy of salt and snow plows could be our way out. But a Seattle Times story pulls the curtain back on a disappointing landscape of city officials who, during this huge snowstorm, are refusing to okay the use of salt because it can be harmful to the environment, particularly to Puget Sound.

Give me a break. Few things aren't harmful to the environment if used incorrectly. But salt can be used safely. Full disclosure:

I grew up on the East Coast where sprinkling salt on roads and sidewalks was as ubiquitous as wearing snow boots and down jackets. East Coasters aren't a bunch of philistines, we just understood the importance of keeping the economy going by moving goods and humans even in the face of Mother Nature's fury.

Salt works, but I don't want to give the impression it is pretty. In snow belt regions, long winters and profligate use of salt meant getting unremoveable moisture stains on leather shoes and boots. A common sight on cars over a few years old was rust stains and bare spots where the salt had eaten into the glossy finish. We proudly called such cars rust buckets. Many people bought old jalopies for use in the winter, sparing nicer cars the indignities of salt rust or fender benders.

One more reason to salt? The chance that icy sidewalks could turn a holiday visit into a long bout of litigation because someone fell on someone else's property. I don't mean to sound like a commercial for the Salt Institute but that grainy spice has its place outside the kitchen.

And don't forget to read the comments by citizens tired of being the "silent" majority.

The Wisconsin Transportation Information Center (TIC), the Wisconsin Local Technology Assistance Program (LTAP) center's Winter 2009 Crossroads newsletter contains a timely review of how salt-strapped Wisconsin cities and counties are coping with expected short supplies of salt this winter. The story starts on page 4.

Bottom line: agencies are assigning a new priority to careful use of salt -- what we've been preaching as Sensible Salting for fully 40 years now. And they're considering alternative deicers. Studies like the NCHRP Report 577 have found salt the best for most storm conditions, but it's a responsible exercise for agencies to look at options. The story also reports, and laments, that some agencies are turning back the clock and expanding their planned use of salt/sand mixes.

A sidebar story beginning on page 7 asks: "Why not sand/salt mix?" and answers:

In fact, the assumption that sand-to-salt ratios of 50/50, 60/40, 70/30 or 75/25 are effective treatments is misguided. TIC agrees instead with research that shows mixing salt and sand (beyond the 2-5 percent salt needed to freeze proof sand stock piles) does not improve the effectiveness of either material.

Weigh the facts

Sand and salt work at cross-purposes. Sand improves traction when it is on top of ice or snow pack. In a salt/sand mix, as the salt begins to melt the snow pack, the sand sinks and mixes with the snow pack. Once the sand is gone from the surface, it does nothing to improve trac tion. Sand mixed with salt also reduces the melting effectiveness of the salt.

There are other costs of using a salt/sand mix to consider. It usually increases the overall application rate, so actual reduction in salt use and cost savings may be less than expected.

For example, in a change from applying salt at an application rate of 300 lbs per lane mile to a 75/25 sand/salt mix applied at 800 lbs per lane mile, the salt component of the mixture is 200 lbs per lane mile for a 33 percent reduction. Assuming a salt price of $60 per ton and a sand price of $4 per ton in this scenario, material costs go down only $1.80 per lane mile. Adjust the equation to a sand/salt ratio of 70/30 and the savings are $0.68 per lane mile. And mixing two-thirds sand with one-third salt saves nothing in material costs over straight salt.

If the route is 10 centerline miles (20 lane miles) or more, it may take an additional trip to the yard to refill the sand/salt mix. The labor and equipment costs for this trip wipe out the nominal savings on materials. Add to that the resource outlay for sand cleanup in the spring and the cost of the mixture is higher

The key point we all need to keep in mind is the life-saving, jobs-preserving mission of snowfighters. We cannot sacrifice public safety at the alter of professed fiscal concerns. If next summer's roadway rights-of-way grow a bit shaggier through less frequent mowing, that price is far more acceptable than one school bus skidding into a ditch this winter.

Today's Janesville Gazette carried the "good news" that "Weather-related emergencies handled 'without a hitch'." The local Wisconsin DOT dispatcher efficiently closed the major Chicago-Madison-Minneapolis/St. Paul Interstate highway when a semi jack-knifed. One crash, no lives lost. We are thankful for the life-saving response. The paper glowingly recorded the dispatcher averring that "The handling of Tuesday's closure was an encouraging practice run for future emergencies."

We hope not.

No one wants to risk life and limb in winter snow conditions, but closing a major transportation artery admits that Mother Nature won that round in the annual war against winter. There are certainly times when blizzard conditions can make a roadway impassible and unsafe; but road closures should be the last resort in preserving winter safety and mobilty.

Studies done at Marquette University in nearby Milwaukee show conclusively that timely application of salt and snow plowing are the most cost-effective defense against winter weather. They reduce traffic crashes by 85% and injuries even more -- 88.3%.

Moreover, closing a road is more than an inconvenience. Moving freight reliably is a major asset for the economy -- it means jobs and ensures the local economy can compete against regions -- and countries -- not so weather -challenged. That's why the Wisconsin Department of Local Affairs and Development produced a film, "Wisconsin Works in Winter," to use in its economic development efforts to convince industries to locate in the Badger State. Manufacturers need to get their workers to the plant, bring in raw materials and ship out finished goods, all on a reliable timetable, a timetable upset when winter maintenance efforts fail. Work done at Iowa State University documented that shippers value not only timely deliveries, but the costs of shipping delays, particularly "non-recurrent" delays they cannot anticipate.

So, hurray for WI DOT for its life-saving communications program, but rather than heralding a hopeful future pattern for winter storm response, we hope Wisconsin snowfighters do as they've done before: conduct a thoughtful post-storm debriefing to find out why their crews were unable to quell Mother Nature and keep cars and trucks moving safely on the road. Otherwise, when winter's snows close Wisconsin roadways, they may find the jobs have moved to Texas by Springtime.

During his radio broadcast on December 6, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama promised to create the largest public works construction program since the inception of the interstate highway system more than a half century ago. This ambitious program will be a pivotal part of the economic recovery program he hopes to fashion with Congress immediately after being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009.

Mr. Obama went on to say he would invest record amounts of money in the vast infrastructure program, which would include highways, bridges, sewer systems, mass transit, electrical grids, and work on schools, dams and other public utilities. The green-oriented jobs generated would result in the creation of greater energy efficiencies while minimizing negative environmental impacts.

It is critical that an investment of this magnitude truly reflects the imperatives of twenty-first century requirements and beyond. Infrastructure programs must be performance-based to ensure that they are meeting our functional needs of minimizing net congestion while maximizing long-term asset preservation, rather than pandering to parochial political interests. Investments in higher quality engineering will also lessen long-term maintenance requirements and associated costs.

Green highways will not only require more eco-friendly and recycled asphalts, but will also have to incorporate an engineering design that efficiently manages runoff including heavy metals, inorganic salts, aromatic hydrocarbons, and suspended solids that accumulate on the road surface as a result of regular highway operation and maintenance activities, such as deicing and herbicide applications. This might include porous pavement shoulders linked to bioretention swales that will reduce pollutants from surface runoff as well as agronomically-adapted or environmentally insensitive buffer areas. The same thinking must go into building and upgrading our bridge system.

While economic recovery is the prime motivation behind this ambitious program to renew our nation's aging infrastructure, we must ensure that the investment of taxpayer dollars provides us with the practical means to improve our daily mobility and commercial efficiency while preserving the environment for generations to come.