Salt & Winter Roadway Safety: For Roadway Maintainers (Snowfighters)

In August 28 comments to Environment Ontario, the Salt Institute articulated principles it favors for inclusion in pending legislation to improve drinking water source protection in the Province of Ontario. Salt Institute president Richard L. Hanneman noted that the four Ontario salt production plants all operate under federal and provincial permits and recommended that source protection be integrated into the existing permitting program or, alternatively, that the new responsibilities and capabilities of regional conservation authorities include granting permits to avoid duplication. He noted the great strides that Ontario governments have made in improving their road salt management practices in recent years and recommended that the conservation authorities be encouraged to support implementation of the national Road Salts Code of Practice as the best management requirement for drinking water source protection against contamination from road salts.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:14 AM | Permalink

Mixing chloride deicing chemicals seems a popular topic. The Salt Institute examined the practice in its Spring 2006 issue of Salt and Highway Deicing (Amsler and Hanneman, "Mixing it up in the fight against winter by blending liquid ice control chemicals") and this week's mail brought the August issue of Roads and Bridges magazine with an article by two APWA Winter Maintenance Subcommittee leaders, Mark Devries (McHenry County, IL) and Bret Hodne (W. Des Moines, IA), entitled "Chloride Cocktail."

Amsler and Hanneman examine the science underlying the experience with using sodium chloride brine mixed with other chemicals. They encourage comparision of melt volume per unit of ice deriving the melting power from the concentration of deicer in molar units. They conclude that adding calcium and magnesium ions will increase the concentration of ions, but the freezing point is lowered only a degree or two and adding CaCl and MgCl increases the risk of precipitation.

Devries and Hodne examine the McHenry County experience with "supermix" -- 85% NaCl brine, 5% CaCl and 10% organic ("De-Ice 55"). The County does not use the liquid at less than 15 degrees F (the normal cutoff for NaCl alone), but as a prewetting agent, they've found it extends the working range of solid deicing salt down to 2 degrees F. As a bonus, they reduced the use of expensive CaCl by nearly 90%.

Cheers!

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 12:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Earlier today, the Federal Highway Administration released a new report calling attention to a critical linkage that the Salt Institute has been promoting for years: incorporating road weather emergency data into the "command post" transportation management centers that coordinate roadway operations. Snowfighting agency managers need to not only read the report, but raise its recommendations to policy-makers who allocate resources so that they can make sure that in snow and ice emergencies, the entire team is plugged-in and coordinated in its response effort

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 09:59 PM | Permalink