Learn How to Minimize Salt Use on your Driveway and Parking Lot.

          In addition to their annual de-icing workshops for municipalities and public roads, the Salt Smart Collaborative has added trainings for any business, public entity, house of worship, property manager, or other individual who maintains parking lots and driveways.  Register for this online workshop to learn how to do your part to help the environment as well as minimize the damage done to your infrastructure and your customers’ vehicles from salt.  The dates for parking lots and driveways are Tuesday, Sept 28, 2021 and Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021,  8 am - 12.  The cost for the link is $45, and can be shared with your employees.  Click here to register. 

Why cut down on road salt? 

          According to the Northwest Water Planning Alliance, most of the road salt (sodium chloride) or other chemicals that are applied to melt ice and snow, either in solid or liquid form, ends up contaminating our streams, lakes, and groundwater. Once road salt is dissolved, there is no practical way to remove the chlorides from water resources.

          It harms native wildlife and plants.  It can be toxic to aquatic wildlife, such as fish, amphibians, and aquatic invertebrates at high levels.  Excessive sodium in soils can stunt plant growth, damage vegetation, or kill plants. Salt-tolerant, invasive plant species often replace vulnerable native plants, leading to a decrease in native plant diversity.

          It damages our infrastructure.  Chloride is a major corrosive agent, especially of steel reinforcement in concrete. It can also accelerate corrosion to metal pipes, structures, and vehicles. The damage to roads and bridges due to deicing salts has been estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year

(Transportation Research Board, 1991, Highway de-Icing: Comparing Salt and Calcium Magnesium Acetate: National Research Council Special Report 235, Washington, DC, 158 p.).     

          Attend the Salt Smart Collaborative De-Icing workshop and do your part for the environment and for your customers and members.  Register.