Winter De-Icing

Road salt is the most common deicer used to promote safe motor vehicle travel during winter months. The most commonly used road salt is sodium chloride, which is readily available, inexpensive, and effectively melts snow and ice. However, after more than half a century of widespread use of road salt in North America, environmental and scientific communities have begun to notice the impacts of road salts on water quality, soils, vegetation, and wildlife.

The Town of North Castle Highway Department, recognizing the potential impacts associated with salt application has been a leader in deploying a pre-emptive salt brine application. Salt brine is 77% water and 23% salt and is applied prior to a storm and can reduce the amount of salt necessary to clear the roadway by 2/3 as compared to a straight application of rock salt.

• Water Quality
  Chloride concentrations have increased in our local reservoirs due to the increased use of road salt. This has an effect on its taste and an impact on human health.
• Soils
  Exposure to salt may kill some healthy soil bacteria, thereby prompting potential changes to soil structure, altering microbial animal populations, and impacting the plants that depend on both the bacteria and microbial animals.
• Vegetation
  Elevated levels of sodium and chloride in the soil inhibit water and nutrient absorption which leads to long-term growth inhibition and direct toxicity to plant cells.
• Wildlife
  Damage to vegetation degrades wildlife habitat by destroying food resources, shelter, and breeding or nesting sites. Road salt can have direct toxic effects on the birds and mammals that drink snowmelt or eat road salt, and it can attract white-tailed deer thereby contributing to potential collisions with motor vehicles.

Given the environmental impacts, salt is still a necessary and generally accepted part of the winter environment. It provides safety and essential mobility for motorists, commercial vehicles, and police, fire, and other emergency vehicles. In fact, if responsible agencies fail to keep their roadways clear of ice and snow, they can be sued.

While municipalities are legally responsible for providing passable and reasonably safe roads, they cannot always produce bare pavement directly after a snowstorm; therefore, we need to work together in order to understand the connection between safe winter driving, salt usage, and water quality.

To address these issues, the Northern Westchester Watershed Committee has created a Highway Deicing Task Force whose mission is to provide for the safety and welfare of the traveling public while protecting natural resources through best management practices. Read the November 2007 Highway Deicing Task Force Report. It is noted that Town of North Castle Highway General Foreman Craig Useted was a member of the Task Force. The Town of North Castle has adopted all of the recommendations contained in the Task Force report.