Is road salt being used too widely on North Country roads?
A couple of environmental groups — Adirondack Action and the Adirondack Council — cosponsored a conference this week at Paul Smiths College that aimed to focus some fresh attention on road salt pollution.
Their primary concern is sodium contamination that’s hitting local lakes, rivers and groundwater. Lake Colby, on the outskirts of Saranac Lake, is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the Adirondack Park.
The Cascade Lakes have also been hard hit and state Department of Transportation Officials acknowledge that sodium dumped from their trucks helped to kill beautiful stands of birch that used to grow along the roadside.
But at this conference, the most vehement voices raised against the overuse of road salt didn’t come from greenies. The real passion came from local highway maintenance supervisors.
“You’re eating that [salt] constantly,” complained Craig Donaldson, highway superintendent in Harrietstown. “You’re tasting it in your mouth all winter long.”
According to Donaldson, using salt aggressively to maintain bare roads causes too much corrosion damage to cars, dumps too much pollution in lakes and groundwater, and it’s too expensive.
“We don’t have to have a level of service just because someone wants to drive the road sixty miles an hour year round,” he insisted. ” I’m sorry, we can’t do that anymore. Nobody can sustain that anymore.”
The price for salt has been rising, along with fuel and maintenance costs for trucks.
Tracy Eldridge, highway supervisor for Hamilton County, agreed that the desire for clear roads in far-flung rural areas may be unsustainable.
“People expect bare roads,” he said. “People have to understand that you cannot accomplish that.”
The DOT’s Robert Winans acknowledged that sustaining the current level of service may be tough given the state’s budget crisis.
“Can we sustain that level indefinitely? Something has to give if we are because we probably aren’t going to get much more money than we have now and the cost for fuel and salt and whatever other material that we end up using is only going to increase.”
In some areas, communities are already re-evaluating which roads will be maintained with bare surfaces.
“Our roads are heavily populated in summer,” said David Decker with the Lake George Watershed Conference.But in winter, he said, use of some routes “drops precipitously.”
“We’re still applying a clear roads salt policy in and around the [Lake George] basin for something like six cars per day,” Decker said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Some tourism officials worry that roads with packed snow surfaces would scare off visitors who are unfamiliar with driving in winter conditions.
It’s also unclear whether locals — after decades of seeing blacktop year-round — will accept a return to the old tradition of snow tires, chains, and slower speeds.
But this is one area where environmental conservation and fiscal conservatism seem to overlap. If road salt use is unsustainable economically and also damaging our Park, maybe it’s time to consider a new approach.
Your thoughts welcome.
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Man, am I on board with this one! Bare roads are a wonderful idea and completely impractical in this area. I know the argument in favor of bare roads- safety. I’m all for that. But pilot error is the primary cause of accidents based on my 23+ years of accident investigation. Yes, we all get caught in the slush and drift out of our lane or slide a bit on the ice. Well, if we’d put better tires on (speaking from personal experience!) we wouldn’t have had so many problems. If we’d drive a bit slower we’d not be sliding through corners. And no amount of salt in the world will prevent the primary cause of the vast majority of accidents- the dreaded CRANIAL/RECTAL INVERSION!!!! Meanwhile the price we pay for the salt, the rust, the environmental damage, what is the true cost of that?
We have better. safer cars and trucks than our grandparents ever dreamed of, we have better tires than they could have imagined. What we don’t have is the money to fund something that’s so damaging to so much else of our world.
What Bret said.
Wow, this is a no-brainer: drive slower, put on snow tires, use little or no salt, less sand (which flows right into our streams and rivers adding sediment), cars last longer, environment benefits, everyone – in the long term – spends a little less. Safety is important, but this one is mostly about convenience, that is, some people needing to drive faster than is safe and, for the most part, necessary, on our mostly rural two lane roads.
On top of all of this, road salt is toxic to birds, especially songbirds that are attracted to the grains as grit for digestion. Two small grains of salt can kill a small songbird. (Environment Canada did an extensive report in 2001)
We can just slow down…and drive less…which also could ever so slightly decrease demand for oil.
First, I should say that I don’t agree with the bare roads policy. It’s wasteful on a number of different levels.
However, “bare” is measurable. Anything other than “bare” ends up being subjective. What is the resulting liability to towns, counties or the state in the event of any accident where a contributing factor is identified as “unsafe conditions”.
I have seen situations where individuals will expect that town to pick up repair costs when they drive some old jalopy down a country road and hit a pothole at 70 mph. What would happen when those same people slide through a stop or drift into another car; and they can claim that road conditions were a factor? Is a 1/2 of snow ok? 1″? How much?
I’m in no hurry.
Doc,
I believe the ticketable offense is “speed not reasonable for conditions.” Although there are a number of otherlaws that would cover your senario.
What Bret said….
“Speed not reasonable and prudent”, but close enough. Bob tickled a thought. Until a few years ago on a Police Accident Report there was a box for the accident cause that read “Other Environmental” or something like that. That was the one you could try and use for black ice, roads collapsing, things like that. There was also “Other Human” (a cause attributable to the driver or passenger but not covered in the other provided choices). That was the one I used (not everyone did) for poor roads, “…Operator V-1 failed to observe deteriorating road conditions…”. Of course it required a Supervisor letting it by but usually I could articulate the reason for my choice (and probably letting the guy off w/o a ticket).
Those choices no longer exist! They were done away with by someone, some bureaucrat, either at the behest of the State or maybe through outside influence (insurance companies???). At any rate the choice is gone and so is the discretion to allow for black ice, etc. Maybe there’s another way the kiddies get by that problem now, I’ve been gone for too long to know, but it sure struck me as wrong at the time.
I am just curious to know, is Vermont’s safety record for snow much worse than New York’s? Maybe New York highway maintenance supervisors, legislators, and environmental conservationists should go over to Vermont and discuss this issue with them. I grew up in Vermont, and the only bare road was the interstate (and even that took a while to be clear). Most other roads were snow packed from the December to February. I could not believe it when I moved to New York! I live on a dead end road and it is usually clear within a few hours. At first, I was very excited; I thought it was much safer. Eventually, though, I just found I was driving faster. At least on the snow packed roads, I was prepared to slip and slide. On clear-looking roads, it is easy to become complacent. It just makes me second-guess the bare roads idea.
I’m a NY’er first and foremost, but am currently living in VT. After 5 or so years of daily commuting on the interstate, here’s my unscientific take:
– Roads more snowy
– More cars off the road (mostly SUVs and pickups – AWD removes prudence, I’ve found)
– Slower traffic
– Everyone has a set of snow tires
Why not use sand on the roads, wouldnt that be better? Some towns already do that.
I guess I’m in the minority but safe naviagable roads is one of the most important services government can provide, especially if you have an emergency 911 call. And quite frankly, there are drivers out there who will not change their driving habits to accomadate snowy roads, putting us all in danger.
Who is against using less salt and sand? If we do this I guess we would need much less overtime and possibly less trucks on the road correct?
Well salt is only good down to about 16 degrees or so given if sun is out, during night different story.But what do you use on bridge decks?Calcium this is just as pricey as salt.What to do to makes roads bare, everything has been tried over the years since I have been there!If you are not going to use salt you need a good sand that has been screened so it has alot of grit to it.The biggest problem i see is people leave for work or school the same time they do during spring and early fall months people slow down and leave 5-10 minutes early all will be safe then.
If too much salt in our diet is bad for us, it only seems logical too much salt is bad for everything.
Its not going to happen if it reduces total hours and overtime hours for public employees. However if there is an alternative that would be safer than salt and keep the hours and pay the same I think that would be the best solution to succeed.
“Its not going to happen if it reduces total hours and overtime hours for public employees.”
I claim ignorance. What contractual control do public employees have over hours or overtime? I missing your point Ithink.
Although this will seem self serving, our product- Ice B’Gone- also called Magic Salt in NYS, will when blended with road salt, cut usage by 30% for the same amount of melting, pay for itself by the reduction in use, and as a bonus, cuts the salt corrosion by +/-70% over straight salt. It is in fairly wide use in NY and NE, but it is our constant effort to educate and inform- as here- since there still are seemingly many who are unaware of this product line.
Look at our website, http://www.seaco.com, and read the testimonials!
Thank you-
David