LITH Recognized for Salt Storage

Roger Wehage October 30, 2011 at 11:27 am

It is true that road salt should be covered and prevented from dissolving and percolating into watershed and aquifers. But meaningful awards should go to those communities who minimize the use of road salt in the first place. Where do we think road salt goes once it has been spread around?
Meaningful awards would look at a community's winter weather conditions, average road slopes, number of road miles, population density, and total salt usage. And based on this information, formulas would be used to determine if a community's road salt is being used properly or wasted. Too many communities have a "Use or Lose" policy. A community is allotted a certain amount of road salt for the winter. If a community doesn't use its allotment, then it may receive less salt the following year. If a community runs out of road salt, it may be difficult to get more, especially if winter conditions are worse than normal. Use or lose policies waste much more salt than protective storage saves.

Max October 30, 2011 at 02:49 pm

Very perceptive points Roger...especially on the use it or lose it policy. The red flag for me was the mention of an organization named Salt Institute. After viewing your comments, I visited the Salt Institute's website and noticed that its member companies consist of the "leading salt companies in the world". It would seem that the Salt Institute has no motivation to advocate responsible use of salt, but they can stand behind responsible storage of salt. I suppose this is fine within context that people know that Salt Institute also has an agenda to promote more salt use. Hopefully the Village isn't promoting this as a meaningful award.