Roads maintained by the Bartholomew County Highway Department may be cleared of ice and snow as effectively as those in Columbus as the county will spray a salt concentration and a beet juice mixture to clean off roads, instead of a salt/sand mixture.
This will be done by adding more salt and other additives to the solution sprayed by county highway trucks this winter, Bartholomew County Highway engineer Danny Hollander said.
“Hopefully, the ice and snow will melt faster, and we’ll be able to get down to the bare pavement quicker,” Hollander said.
Cost has always been the most significant factor in determining how icy rural roads are treated, Hollander said.
Since salt is 10 times more expensive than sand, the county has traditionally used a comparatively weak salt brine to melt the snow, as well as sand that provides vehicles better traction – but does nothing to melt frozen precipitation, Hollander said.
In contrast, the city of Columbus utilizes a higher concentration of salt mixed with water, Columbus’ Director of Public Works Bryan Burton said.
If you put a 10% salt solution on to an icy road, the brine is no longer effective in melting ice when the temperature drops to 20 degrees. But although the city uses about a 10% salt solution, the concentration seems to work well at melting frozen participation at even lower temperatures due to heavier traffic in the city, Burton said.
For more on this story, see Wednesday’s Republic.
