A final winter’s tale
Spring has sprung early this year, making streets soaked with magnesium chloride a mute point for now. Still, judging by reader response to the last two columns on the topic, many citizens share concern over the melter’s use and overuse — some individuals even wishing to mount a campaign to regulate more judicious use of it.
For example, M.J. reflected those sentiments, writing, “The BIG question is: Whom, which agency, can we pressure to ensure safer applications AND return to good ol’ sand and gravel for our region? I believe a successful effort can be mounted to change this egregious practice.”
And C.F. similarly opined, “So, Bill, with all the complaints about the liquid abomination, can you bundle them up some way to submit to the city hierarchy? I’d really like to know their justification for pouring it on, whether roads are icy or not.”
In my first column regarding the caustic melter, which elicited dozens of responses, I thanked the road crews for their efforts in keeping our winter roads safer using the tools in their arsenals (plows, sand, liquid deicer). But the impetus for writing that column was a Friday drive in the Spokane Valley where literally every road was soaked. I even got stuck behind two trucks that were pouring it out.
Maybe that county crew missed the forecast, but it was 38 degrees that day, with night and day temperatures in the 40s predicted, along with rain for the next three days. That represented the essence of my complaint: unnecessary and/or overuse.
Besides the waste and corrosive properties, there are other concerns. A few truckers, who travel lots of roads in lots of conditions, voiced concern over the slickness of the deicing product itself. It’s akin to a dilemma of studded tire use. Deicer may melt the snow, but the product doing so can make roads slick —just like studded tires may have a slight advantage on ice, but suffer inferior turning and stopping traction on the dry and wet roads that are predominant during our winters.
Moreover, many believe the potential environmental hazards have not been fully appreciated.
Consider the experience of reader J.H., who reported, “Last winter they were
applying mag chloride liquid on the street in front of our house. The truck slid on the ice and ended up sliding down a hill in front of our house and rolled over spilling around 300 gallons of magnesium chloride by three 80 foot ponderosa pines. I was assured by the arborist who inspected the spill that it was safe for vegetation. Apparently in the quantity
that was spilled, it was toxic to the roots of the trees and they were dead by the end of the summer.”
Even though it is evidently not harmless, I don’t expect the use of liquid deicer to stop, because few things are as simple as they might seem.
T.W., a retired road crew employee well-versed in the corrosive properties of magnesium chloride, reported the despair of mechanics and electricians in the shop, as the stuff regularly eroded cab floors, pedals, hinges, et cetera. He wrote, “Our parts room got real good at ordering spare pedals, bolts, and wiring harnesses.”
But T.W. also explained that even though the liquid costs around a couple bucks per gallon, its use is part of an attempt to manage winter road maintenance budgets and satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency.
He reminded me that the EPA determined that the sand/salt mixture remaining on the roads in spring was ground up into particles less than 10 microns in size, making them a hazard to human health upon inhalation.
Additionally, T.W. “spoke” of the manpower costs that can be saved by doing less plowing and having less sand to clean up in the spring when chemical deicers (known as “juice” in the trade) are used as the main snow and ice reducers for our streets. As a result, he believes that the government mantra will continue to be, “Less plowing, more juice.”
I still believe that the “juice use” could become more judicious, and that drivers should adjust their expectations to not see the pavement so often in the winter.
Readers may contact Bill Love via email at precisiondriving@spokesman.com.
