The state will use treated salt and little or no sand on Connecticut roads this winter in a new program that officials say will make driving safer, keep roads and cars cleaner and help the environment.
The most visible change, according to the Department of Transportation, will be a reduction in the amount of ugly, brown snow as a result of spreading less sand.
Under its new snow and ice removal program, the agency will use sodium chloride - rock salt - combined with liquid calcium chloride or salt brine, instead of the sand-salt mixture it had used for decades.
"Our goal here is to have the roadways as safe as possible in inclement winter weather," said DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick. "As an added benefit, we've got proven environmental ramifications."
State environmental officials say the change is a step in the right direction when it comes to the health of streams and rivers, often the end points for sand spread on the roads and then washed away. The sand damages habitat for fish and other aquatic life.
Transportation officials plan to use the same amount of salt this winter as in previous winters. Using salt still carries environmental risks. Regardless of whether it is mixed with sand or spread by itself, salt must be applied as sparingly as possible near bodies of water, wells and vegetation to avoid harm, experts say.
But the salt-only program will reduce the problem of sweeping tons of often-tainted sand from roadways, cleaning it from storm catch basins after the winter and disposing of it in the state's dwindling number of landfills, officials say. Sand on the roads typically picks up car-related contaminants such as copper and heavy metals from brake dust and oil from engines.
The transportation department made the change partly for environmental reasons and partly as a result of a critical report last year from the National Transportation Safety Board, said Christopher Stone, storm water permit coordinator at the state Department of Environmental Protection. Transportation officials consulted DEP officials about the policy change about a year ago, Stone said Friday.
The safety board in November 2005 laid part of the blame for an I-95 crash that killed four Yale University athletes in 2003 on the state's use of an "antiquated mixture" of sand and salt that was not as effective as straight salt would have been in melting black ice.
"The biggest reason was the difficulty with sand and the disposal of sand," Stone said of Connecticut's policy change. "There was also a discussion of the NTSB report," he said. "So I know that was an issue."
In terms of environmental questions, Stone said, authorities are trying to find the lesser of all evils. "None of them are perfect environmentally," he said.
"Presumably technology and the companies that manufacture this stuff will develop safer, more environmentally friendly products as time goes by, and this step buys some time until that happens," he said.
In the new de-icing method, either no sand or little sand will be spread on state roads. Rock salt will be treated with the liquid brine or liquid calcium chloride as it is spread onto the pavement by plow trucks.
The liquid is meant to help the rock salt stick to the roadway, reducing its tendency to bounce and scatter off the pavement, according to transportation officials. The liquid also activates the salt, which will melt snow into salt brine that in turn will melt more snow, the officials say.
"We're not looking to actually increase the amount of salt we're putting on the roads," Nursick, the DOT spokesman, said. "We should be using the same amount of salt; just taking the sand out of the picture is what we're doing."
The transportation department has used the new salt-only method this year during a few snow squalls. But the policy change will begin in earnest this season with the arrival of the first storm, Nursick said.
