Salt on our streets helps keep us safe in the winter, but too much salt can pose a risk to fish and other wildlife, and humans. Follow these tips to be safe and salt-smart at home:
- Shovel early and often. Deicers work best for melting thin layers of snow or ice. Shovel first, break up any ice patches and then add deicer.
- Use less salt. Sprinkle deicer sparingly and evenly, leaving space between the grains. More is not better. A 12-ounce mug of salt is enough to treat a 20-foot driveway or 10 sidewalk squares. Consider organic, salt-free and pet-safe deicers.
- Sweep and reuse. After a weather event, sweep and collect any sand, salt or undissolved deicer. Any excess can be re-used for the next storm. Letting it run off into waterways is harmful to drinking water and wildlife.
Interested in doing more? Join the Salt Watch Community Science Initiative from 1-2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 1 at Croydon Creek Nature Center, 852 Avery Road. Learn about road salt and how to monitor a body of water, or even your tap, for road salt pollution. Learn more and register at www.rockvillemd.gov/registration by selecting the “Croydon Creek Nature Center” tab.
Smart Salt Use by the City of Rockville
The city’s Department of Public Works is working to reduce its overall salt usage while ensuring safe roads.
One of the primary ways crews do this is by pretreating roads with a liquid salt brine that has a lower salt concentration and can be more precisely applied than rock salt. Sometimes beet juice — yes, beet juice! — is mixed with the brine to help it work at lower temperatures. Staff also uses calculated salt-application rates, ensures that salt spreaders are properly calibrated and plans routes to avoid double-treating roads.
Earlier this year, crews attended a “salt summit,” hosted by the city’s Environmental Management Division staff that focused on the impacts of salt on waterways — especially the Chesapeake Bay.