Hampton by Hilton Hotels in Charlottesville.But be sure to sweep it up later, she said, before it gets washed away and clogs up the storm sewer or causes sediment problems in lakes and streams. While each of those alternatives might provide a little traction on slippery surfaces, they won't melt the ice.įor those really slippery spots where traction is needed, a good strategy might be to sprinkle a little sand. Some people swear by their own home remedies, like chicken grit - a material made mainly of crushed stone fed to birds to help their digestion - coffee grounds or kitty litter. "It's still a chemical, and it's still going to have an impact on the environment," Asleson said. But if they contain chloride, they're still harmful for lakes and streams. When you're looking at labels, she said, products without sodium might be better for your lawn. "If somebody wants to say that their salt product they're selling is environmentally friendly, there's no laws in place making them prove or show that, in fact, it's a benefit to the environment," she said. There are a lot of products out there that are advertised as safe or eco-friendly, Asleson said, but added that there are no regulated labeling requirements for de-icing products, so it's hard to know for sure if that's true. Many homeowners are looking for their own environmentally-safer solutions for icy sidewalks and driveways. "I think our biggest savings will be in just waste reduction," Fortin said. She said more research is needed.Ĭonnie Fortin, a consultant who trains maintenance crews on smart salting techniques, said there's no "silver-bullet" de-icer that will replace road salt. Unlike chloride, the chemical eventually breaks down in the environment, Asleson said, but lab tests have shown it's toxic to aquatic insects. The environmental impacts of potassium acetate are still unclear. But crews are using much less of it than they do road salt, so the cost ends up being about the same, he said. Potassium acetate is a liquid solution and costs about three times as much as road salt, Cheney said. Salt isn't effective at melting ice when the temperature falls below about 15 degrees. It's better at melting ice in cold temperatures, he said. The Minnesota Department of Transportation has been experimenting with potassium acetate as an alternative to road salt on some of the area's most heavily used bridges, tunnels and traffic routes near downtown Duluth.Ĭhris Cheney, maintenance operations superintendent for the department's Duluth district, said the chemical has shown some promise. When the organic material in those alternative remedies washes into lakes or streams, it can deplete the dissolved oxygen in the water, leaving too little for fish and aquatic life.įew cities anywhere in the country have as challenging a confluence of winter conditions as Duluth, where steep hills, heavy snowfalls and lake-effect wind and moisture test road maintenance crews. Some are effective, but they usually require added salt in order to really work, anyway, said Brooke Asleson, water pollution prevention coordinator for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.Īnd there's still an environmental impact, she said. In other states, road agencies have tested different food byproducts - including pickle juice, cheese brine and beet juice - as de-icers. Many departments are switching from road salt to a liquid saltwater brine that sticks to the pavement better and doesn't bounce off into the ditch. They're using snowplows equipped with technology that measures the surface temperature of the pavement and adjusts the salt distribution accordingly. Public works agencies around Minnesota have been trying to reduce the amount of salt they use on winter roads to save money - and the environment.
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