Golden Valley Crews Work To Balance Snow Removal with Environmental Stewardship

Public works crews in Golden Valley do their best to balance the environmental impacts of salt and other chemicals commonly used for treating roads sidewalks once wintry weather strikes.

Golden Valley crews use a saltwater brine to pretreat roads when possible during the winter.

“We really pride ourselves in being on the forefront of reducing our salt usage. We use a lot of liquid brine and liquid additives to make our salt work more efficiently,” said Marshall Beugen, the City of Golden Valley’s streets and vehicle maintenance superintendent. “We’ll go out and pre-treat the roads ahead of time when the temperatures are right. We have chemicals we can add into the brine to make it work in colder temperatures, and then that brine helps prevent and reduce the amount of salt that we have to put down on the roads as we’re out making them safe.”

Crews use less salt than they did several years ago, Beugen said. He’s worked for the city’s public works department for two decades. He said the city abides by the four S’s for smart salt use:

• Shovel as much snow as possible before salting.
• Scatter salt so there is 2-3 inches of space between each granule.
• Switch from salt to sand when temperatures are below 15 degrees.
• Sweep up excess salt after the ice has melted. 

“Every storm is different, so we do our best to look at the big picture of the storm,” Beugen said. “Look at the timing of when it’s going to come in. We deploy our plows accordingly. We prefer to be out there at 2:00 a.m. so that there’s no other traffic around us, ideally, to impact our accidents or anything to that effect. We go, we plow the snow, and we treat the roads, and we try to make it so that there wasn’t a storm to begin with.”

Beugen also said the city focuses on maintaining and clearing the city’s more than 60 miles of sidewalks during and after storms. 

“We do not salt or treat any of the sidewalks, because they’re not designed for that, they’re not designed for the drainage on that,” he said.  

Golden Valley

Cities Stories