This document provides an overview of best management practices for snow and ice control operations from a national perspective. It discusses current trends toward upgrading technology while reducing costs. It also covers concerns about chloride loading and the use of weather and pavement data. The document reviews different snow and ice control materials and application rates. It promotes the principles of anti-icing to improve levels of service and reduce impacts. Other topics summarized include pre-wetting, equipment calibration, facility management, and creating a culture of change.

1. Best Management Practices
A National Perspective
Laura Fay
Cary Institute
February 13, 2018
Photo courtesy of M. Mills
www.miissoulanews.bigskypress.com
www.ci.bellevue.wa.us
www.ci.bellevue.wa.us

3. Recent news… Older News

4. Current Direction
• Upgrading to newer
technology
• Tight budgets = finding cost
savings
– Often costs savings = material
savings
*We often sell best practices
because they are cost savings
measures, with the side benefit of
reduced environmental impacts.

5. Current Direction
• Concerns about chloride loading
– TMDLs for chloride (Chicago?, New
Hampshire, others)
• Weather and Pavement data and
forecasts
• Ag- and bio-based additives

6. Snow and Ice Control Materials
• Sand
• Treated sand (sand + 10% salt (s,l))
• Chlorides – NaCl, MgCl2, CaCl2 (s,l)
• Ag-based – beet, corn (l)
• Acetates & formates (s,l), glycols (l)

7. Product Application Rates
• Sand – 100 to 1000 lbs/l-m (32°F and colder)
• Salt/sand – 400 to 1000 lbs/l-m (32 to 0°F)
• NaCl (32 to 15°F)
– Solid – 100 to 800 lbs/l-m
– Liquid – 10 to 40 gal/l-m
– Pre-wet – 8 to 20 gal/l-m
• MgCl2 (32 to -5°F) and CaCl2 (32 to -15°F)
– Solid – 100 to 500 lbs/l-m
– Liquid – 10 to 40 gal/l-m
– Pre-wet – 8 to 20 gal/l-m
• Ag-based by products – typically an additive
7

8. • Deliver the right type & amount of
materials in the right location at the right
time.
– Improves -> effectiveness & efficiency
– Reduces -> material usage, costs,
environmental footprint.
The Triple Bottom Line
For WM = Balancing LOS versus
sustainability.
Salt Smart Principles

9. Anti-icing
“the snow and ice control practice of preventing
the formation or development of bonded snow and
ice by timely applications of a chemical freezing-
point depressant”
• Improves
– LOS, mobility, safety
• Reduces
– Cost, product use, need for
abrasives, plowing.
– Side benefit of reducing
impacts to the environment, infrastructure, and
vehicles.
9

10. Pre-Wetting
Adding liquids to solid
products or abrasives.
• Benefits
– Eases product management
and distribution
– Accelerates break-up of snow/ice and enhances
melting, by going into solution quicker.
– Minimizes bounce and scatter (by 26%)
– Improves longevity on the road = less frequent
applications
10

11. ISSAEST, Fairbanks, AK, USA, August 2-5, 2015
Pathways of Deicer Migration off the
Roadway
11

12. Impacts of Salt and Chloride Based Deicers
www.witnerservices.net
www.ci.bellevue.wa.us
Photo courtesy of M. Mills
www.clf.org
www.modot.org
www.syracuse.com
www.miissoulanews.bigskypress.co

13. Impacts of Sand and Abrasives
www.mto.gov.on.ca
www.itd.idaho.gov
www.utah.sierraclub.org
www.thunderbay.ca
www.kcsq.com
$ $ $

14. Acetate, Formates & Glycols
BOD
www.ci.bellevue.wa.us
Reduces
available
oxygen
for organism in
the soil and
aquatic
environments.
Benefits
• Break down in
the environ.
• Less corrosive
than chlorides
Not so good
• Higher costs
• Exert a higher
BOD

15. Facility Management
• The design and operation of maintenance
facilities can have a direct influence on
potential contamination issues and loss of
materials.
• “Good housekeeping” – clean, organized, and
well maintained.

16. Facility Management – Material Storage
• Storage facilities have the greatest potential
to impact the environment
– a concentrated point source
To prevent this:
• Solids – Covered, impermeable surface.
• Liquids – Secondary containment,
impermeable surface.

17. Equipment Calibration
• Is a must to:
– Know what is being put out there,
– To realize savings gained from investment in new
technology and new practices
• Train & keep records
• When to calibrate:
– When first acquired, points throughout a season,
whenever a new material is used, after repairs, if
there appears to be discrepancy in material
usage

18. Calibration Example
• $75,000 savings in one year
• Asked the drivers where they set the knob
500 - 1200 lbs/l-m
• Recommended application rate is 250
lbs/l-m.
• Once calibrated, changing the culture of
the operators became apparent.

19. Overview of WM Operations
19

20. Drift Control and Snow Fences
≥8 ft
Wildlife habitat, control
erosion, improve water quality,
reduce spring-time flooding,
sequester carbon.
• Reduce blowing and drifting snow
• Low cost snow storage
• Increased safety
• Reduce need for snow & ice control product
• 25 year lifespan at $1.40 per ft2

21. Creating a culture of change
• Road User Expectations
• Implementing existing knowledge
• Project champions
• Training
• Culture change, operational change
– Long term system wide approaches
– Using each success is a stepping stone

22. The future is upon us…
Discover
Oct. 23, 2017
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-
brief/2017/10/23/self-driving-snow-
plows/#.WoJf52_wbIV

23. Questions?
Laura Fay
Western Transportation Institute
laura.fay1@montana.edu

24. International Low Volume
Roads Conference
Sept. 15-18,2019
• NW Montana – near Glacier National Park
• Meet, share with, and learn from your
counterparts in foreign countries, across
the country, and from federal and state
land agencies on all things low volume
roads (construction, maintenance, stabilization, safety,
dust control, you name it, we’ll have it!)
https://sites.google.com/site/trbcommitteeafb30/

25. Resources/References
EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVE ANTI-ICING AND DEICING COMPOUNDS USING
SODIUM CHLORIDE AND MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE AS BASELINE DEICERS
(Report)
http://www.westerntransportationinstitute.org/documents/reports/4w1095_final_report.p
df
Manual of Environmental Best Practices for Snow and Ice Control (Manual and
webinar)
http://clearroads.org/project/snow-and-ice-control-environmental-best-management-
practices-manual/
Strategies to Mitigate the Impacts of Chloride Roadway Deicers on the Natural
Environment (Report)
http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/169520.aspx
Manual of Best Management Practices for Roads Salt in Winter Maintenance (Manual
and webinar)
http://clearroads.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/0537_2015-Clear-Roads-Best-
Practice-Guide-WEB.pdf
Understanding the Effectiveness of Non-Chloride Liquid Agricultural By-Products and
Solid Complex Chloride/Mineral Products Used in Snow and Ice Control Operations
http://clearroads.org/project/13-02/

26. Resources/References

27. Resources/References