Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Millions spent on road salt, another car cost externalized from profit

Public discussion coming on road salt, transportation commissioner says | KGW.com: "The Oregon Department of Transportation said it knows salt works wonders melting ice, but  there are concerns because it would ultimately get washed into our storm drains which flow to a sewer treatment plant to be cleaned before going into the river.
ODOT is now studying whether the tons and tons of salt that would be needed would corrode those old metro-area pipes. Can treatment plants handle it? Or will fish suffer?
"It affects the roads, the steel in the bridges and the concrete and it affects your car. With this storm, how many times would we have to lay down salt?" asked ODOT spokesman Dave Thompson. "How many tons of salt would we have to lay down? That would affect a great deal of infrastructure. All that salt stays on the road or washes off into the environment. It's not picked up, it's now part of our environment. Is that what people want?""