New Hope Tries New Salting Solutions for Winter Road Treatment
When it comes to treating roads before, during, and after a winter storm, city leaders in New Hope are doing the best they can to provide safe travel conditions and protect the environment at the same time.
New Hope city workers can now mix their own salt and water/brine mixture to pre-treat roads in the event of inclement winter weather.
The big thing with the rock salt is we don’t want to overuse, so when we do that application, we’re making sure we’re pre-wetting or wetting that actual salt granular before it’s put out on the street so it sticks better and doesn’t just bounce off into the ditch,” said New Hope’s stormwater specialist, Nick Macklem. Macklem said a teaspoon of rock salt used to treat roads can pollute up to five gallons of water.
“We want to use brine also to supplement that so we can do some targeted treatments around intersections ahead of the storm, and ultimately that leads to less ice build-up on the road as the storm gets underway,” he said.
Brine was in shorter supply for the small suburban city until this year. Instead of relying on other cities’ supplies of the salt-water mixture, now New Hope has it’s own equipment to mix, store, and supply its trucks with as much brine as the storm may require.
“Especially in those higher-traffic areas, like intersections, and that does allow for that plow truck, when it does get out there, smoother removal of that ice build-up and hard-packed snow at that intersection,” said Macklem. “So that brine really helps with that mechanical removal with the plow truck once the storm has come.”
