Aurora council may say 'pass the salt' for roads as winter looms

Yorkregion.com
Oct. 26, 2015
By Teresa Latchford

Aurora is advised to take winter with a grain of salt.

Town council will make the final decision whether to fight slippery winter roads with sand or salt during tomorrow night’s meeting at town hall. The town originally switched to using sand because of environmental concerns associated with the use of salt. However, a recent winter maintenance performance report has staff suggesting the town could save more than $130,000 annually if it converts back to using 100 per cent salt.

The nine-page report, presented by infrastructure and environmental service director Ilmar Simanovskis, explains that while salt is 86 per cent more expensive compared to sand, more than three times the amount of sand is used to make it effective and the spring clean up requires more effort as well as more dollars.

“The greater application rate results in greater trips to the yard for refilling of the material, increasing the costs of labour and fuel,” he said in the report. “Sand will remain on the roadways after the snow melting has completed.

“This build up of excess material needs to be collected and properly disposed of in the spring, resulting in increased street-sweeping and material disposal costs.”

Sand also travels through the storm water management system and into ponds, rivers and streams. The excess requires catch basins to be cleaned to remove any build-up of sand, which comes with a price as well.

Currently, the town is using straight salt on the primary roads and a mixture of 90 per cent sand and 10 per cent salt on secondary roads.

Making the switch to salt only will mean less application of material, speeding up routes, and result in less costs, in terms of fuel and time, when it comes to filling up the delivery equipment.

It also leaves much less debris on the road and in ponds come the spring meaning less cost for clean up and disposal.

The town could purchase a second street-sweeper and complete road spring-cleaning in-house in about four weeks.

“Environment Canada has identified salt use as a hazard to the environment, however no suitable alternative to road safety management is available,” he added.

The report also suggests disposing of the brine solution (salt and water) method and to adopt the use of pre-treated salt that won’t prematurely corrode equipment and will stay on the road longer.

The final decision will be discussed and voted on at tomorrow night’s council meeting, which begins at 7 p.m.