A common and costly issue a variety of industries face is corrosion damage, yet no one seems to talk about it. The experts at EnviroTech are here to provide valuable information about what corrosion is, the affect of corrosion, and how it can be prevented. Let’s go over some commonly asked questions regarding corrosion:

Over the past decade, water shortages have been devastating to a multitude of areas throughout the world. The Colorado River provides water to more than 30 million people spanning from Denver to Los Angeles, and the Lake Powell and Lake Mead Basins are in a 20 year drought. Our use of water in the region and our actions impact the basin. Furthermore, the Colorado River is experiencing a phenomenon known as the albedo effect; previously, snow and ice reflected sunlight away from the Earth’s surface, but the loss of snow and ice is causing the river to absorb more of the sun’s energy thus increasing water lost through evaporation. The disappearance of snow and ice is due to increased emissions primarily caused by agricultural practices. A study conducted by US Geological Survey scientists, Chris Milly and Krista A. Dunne, predicts that if emissions stay at this rate, the river’s discharge could shrink by up to 31% by the middle of the century.

Keeping the road dust under control at your landfill is not just a matter of safety for your workers. It’s also a matter of keeping the neighbors happy and and avoiding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fines.

Full chloride products are the most prominent treatment for dust control and road stabilization in North America, but they are not always environmentally friendly or effective.

Here at EnviroTech we always keep our motto, “People Helping People Improve their Environment,” in mind with everything we do. Recently, we had a huge opportunity to help the people of Denver, Colorado help their environment.

Treating or pre-wetting salt stockpiles has many advantages such as ensuring salt flow for stockpile movement and salt application, as well as reducing material loss due to bounce and scatter during application.  Salt treatment can also improve melting capacity, melting time and melting. However, if a substandard liquid treatment is used to pre-wet a salt stockpile, leaching can prevent these advantages from being realized.

Ensuring the safety of motorists and passability of roadways in the winter months is critical in many regions of the country. Some of the most useful parts of the toolkit many municipalities use to ensure roadway safety are deicing chemicals such as granular rock salt, salt brine, magnesium chloride, or calcium chloride. These chemicals function by effectively lowering the freezing point of water. Deicers can be used before a storm to prevent snow and ice from bonding as solidly to pavement and improve the effectiveness of plowing. Typically, this is called “anti-icing” and brine's are predominantly used in this capacity.

Commercial snow removal customers often ask why not use sand as the preferred deicer.  It comes down to several different factors as to why this may not be the best answer. Below is a mailbag format with many of the most common questions asked about using sand and an alternative that provides many of the benefits without all the negatives.