EnviroTech Journal

By Kevin Whyrick, EnviroTech Services

Over the next three months, we will be looking at series called the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Applying Dust Control. The first TCO we’ll look at is costs and benefits of Treating vs. Leaving untreated unpaved roads, next we’ll investigate some of the hidden costs of using water as Dust Suppressant and finally, we’ll finish up the series with equipment maintenance benefits/savings.

Unpaved roads can be an unpleasant nuisance, affecting the quality of life for everyone who travels on gravel roads and those who live or work nearby. It is also a warning sign of costly road damage that can increase maintenance requirements and strain road commission budgets. Just as important, road dust can threaten the driving safety and public health, damage vehicles, and other property, and harm our natural environment. Considering that there are approximately two million miles of unpaved roads in the U.S. and more than 600,000 km in Canada, efforts to control road dust are a concern in both the United States and Canada. The issues with unpaved roads and dust control exist globally also.

AMP® is one of EnviroTech’s latest product releases and it brings technical innovation and outstanding product quality to the salt brine additive market. Salt Brine is a great tool for snowfighters, as it can be used for pre-treating, deicing and anti-icing. But salt brine alone has some very detectable performance limitations: 1) salt brine is prone to drying out and being blown from the surface by the wind, 2) the melting point of salt brine is often not low enough to be effective in many storms, and 3) salt brine is among the worst options in terms of the corrosion it will cause. 

The Owl Canyon Corridor in Northern Larimer County is an eleven-mile section of Larimer County Road 70 and 72 that serves as an important connection between US Highway 287 and Interstate 25. The westernmost three miles of the corridor is non-paved consisting of a treated gravel surface.

FcaWhen snow and ice melts, the salt goes with it, washing into our lakes, streams, wetlands, and groundwater. When winter comes and snow and ice build-up on roads, parking lots, and sidewalks, one of the most common reactions is to apply salt, which contains chloride.

A study termed the “Freshwater Salinization Syndrome,” have occurred most prominently in densely populated watersheds in the eastern and mid-western U.S. where salinity and alkalinity have increased most rapidly. Cities, counties and states are doing different things to reduce and limit the Chloride (Cl^-) in their water..

For winter maintenance agencies and contractors, snow and ice control is a vital function of their work providing safe conditions for the public. Using an innovative product that reduce costs, improves safety, and mitigates environmental impacts is increasingly important.

Anti-icing using liquid brines is a proactive method of snow and ice control. It’s a proven method to reduce chlorides and lower costs with nearly every state DOT in the US using Liquid Anti-icers. The brines are approximately 20-32% salt (depending on type of salt brine used) and is applied to pavements before a storm to prevent snow and/or ice from bonding. Both liquid and granular deicing/anti-icing products have benefits that, when applied correctly, will maximize your road service levels to keep people safe while minimizing costs to you and the environment. The success of your anti-icing/deicing program depends on your knowledge and application of the right products at the right times depending on conditions. “Dry deicers with wet snow and liquid deicers with dry snow”. 

No standard exists for determining when snow and ice accumulation is severe enough that it will endanger patrons or employees. In most cases, managers and supervisors must use their own judgment to alter work practices based on changes in weather conditions.  Just plowing or shoveling snow cannot prevent slippery conditions for pedestrians, 90% of walkway injuries happen with less than 1 inch of snow.  Just a thin layer of snow is all it takes to make the difference between a sidewalk with traction and a slippery mess. If sidewalks are not cleared properly, liability falls on the property owner.  Facility managers need to understand anti-icing and de-icing technologies and the relative best practices to employ.  To protect yourself from slip-and-fall lawsuits, you can:

1. Monitor the slip factor by checking walkways yourself.
2. Put up signs. If you know that a certain section of your walkway or parking lot is prone to ice formation, put up a sign that warns patrons or employees of the possible slip factor.
3. Use best practices in terms of fundamental snow and ice control strategies.

The fundamental snow and ice control strategies in winter maintenance include: Anti-icing, Deicing, Pre-wetting, and Pretreating.

EnviroTech is proud to announce that our new salt brine enhancing product AMP, has received approval from the Pacific Northwest Snowfighters Association (PNS). PNS members are a collection of transportation agencies throughout the states of Washtington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, as well as British Columbia. The guidelines established by PNS assist users in product selection by requiring that corrosion inhibited approved products:

The topic of how to treat areas with unique or highly sensitive ecological needs has been long standing within dust control markets. The days of using things like waste oil to treat roads are long gone, and the vast majority of vetted products present very little risk to the environments they enter. Still, there are outlying areas that cannot tolerate chlorides at any significant level. Places like the Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, which have precious and biologically diverse wetlands to preserve.

And although places like Squaw Creek have a growing number of chloride free products to choose from – the issue is not so easily settled. Why? Because many of these products simply do not perform. Just like calorie free sweeteners or soy based veggie burgers, it can be hard to remove an element or ingredient and still get the punch we want. It is the classic consumer tradeoff that good product developers constantly look to close. durablend-C™ is EnviroTech’s latest step forward in this quest.

For Squaw Creek, however, maintaining its ecology was about more than finding a decent sugar free coffee sweetener. As such, they entered into a rigorous screening process to identify products worthy of including in an on-site study. In short, durablend-C™ passed the test. And not just because it did not have an adverse interaction with the wetlands. It passed because it worked. A single application of durablend-C™ that incorporated ESI’s proprietary Compact & Cap™ program performed as well or better than two applications of the alternative product tested over the same timeline without compromising the ecosystem.

Application of durablend-C™