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.
While excessive salt of roads is frequently criticized, the excessive use of sand for traction creates its own problems, Hollander said.
Leftover sand will eventually form berms, which are essentially a raised barrier separating two areas, Hollander said. The formation of these sand berms often prevent water from properly draining off an asphalt pavement, he said.
“It has also created other issues within the two-mile jurisdiction (of Columbus beyond the city limits) regarding storm drains,” Hollander said. “We have ended up with sand in storm sewers, which isn’t good either.”
Bartholomew County road crews plan to add more salt, but they will also now use other additives such as beet juice, Hollander said. The sugar molecules from beet juice, combined with a stronger salt solution, should help melting the ice off roads at much lower temperatures.
Although the city of Columbus does not add beet juice to their brine, Burton thinks it’s a wise move for the county.
“Beet juice is a bit sticky, so it tends to stay on the road a lot longer than just brine,” Burton said. “While we don’t add it right now, it is something we may consider someday.”
The county’s change in brine concentration is being made as the result of public demand, Hollander said.
“People go into Columbus and drive on clear streets, but find themselves back on ice and snow again once they leave town,” Hollander said. “Today, nobody is satisfied until we are able to get back down to dry pavement.”
While adding more salt to the brine will be more costly in one way, it will be less expensive in other ways, Hollander said.
In recent years, rural roads sometimes had to be treated “over and over and over again” with a weaker brine, Hollander said. For any highway department, that will mean significantly higher costs in terms of additional gasoline and overtime for highway workers. The abrasive sand that provides traction also adds to the wear and tear on equipment.
Since there are financial advantages and disadvantages for taxpayers no matter what method you use, Hollander said these changes are being done on a trial basis this winter.
County officials have also been reluctant to add more road salt because there have been at least two incidents over the past 11 years when harsh winters resulted in price-gouging.
The latest took place during the winter of 2013-2014, when there were a dozen significant snowfalls. Bartholomew County ended up spending 50% more for salt in February 2014 than they paid two months earlier. Six years earlier in 2008, another salt shortage raised the cost of road salt to $120 a ton — up from $52 paid just two months earlier.
To prevent the price issues, the state has allowed Bartholomew, as well as most of Indiana’s 92 counties, to become part of their statewide bid for salt for the past five years, Hollander said. A substantial amount of salt can be obtained at a much lower price than local governments can obtain it on their own, Hollander said.
