A Mug-Full Will Suffice When You Deice
Follow these tips to keep your sidewalks and drive-way snow- and ice-free, while minimizing the environmental impact:
Shovel Early, Shovel Often
Deicers work best for melting thin layers of snow or ice. Shovel first before snow hardens into ice, breaking up any icy patches you can. Then add the salt.
Use Salt Sparingly
Scatter deicer, leaving space between the grains. A 12-ounce mug full of salt can treat a 20-foot driveway or 10 sidewalk squares. Using more won’t speed up melting and can harm soil and water quality.
Buy Early and Check Labels
Buy before a storm forecast to avoid empty shelves at the store. Check the label: While slightly more expensive, calcium chloride (CaCl2) requires less salt, works at lower temperatures and does not contain cya-nide, unlike sodium chloride (NaCl, also known as rock salt). Urea is sometimes promoted as lawn-friendly fertilizer. However, the application rate for urea is far greater than the amount your lawn needs and can wind up polluting streams as runoff.
Avoid Kitty Litter and Ashes
While environmentally friendly, kitty litter and ashes are only marginally effective at adding traction and won’t melt ice. For traction, a better option is to mix in a small amount of sand and use less salt.
Sweep and Reuse
After a weather event, sweep and collect any sand, salt or undissolved deicer. Any excess can be reused for the next storm. Letting it run off into waterways is harmful to drinking water and wildlife.
Learn 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 reducing its 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.
Last year, crews attended a “salt summit,” hosted by the city’s Environmental Management Division staff that focused on the impacts of salt on waterways.