Small town winter road treatments.

Submitted by ValdorFox t3_ylywo1 in massachusetts

Hello everyone.

In the winter, I notice that when driving through Oakham, New Braintree, Hardwick and Petersham, the road treatments tend to be more sand than salt.

But crossing the Barre town line for instance, it goes from sand to straight salt.

I was wondering if there was a reasoning behind this? Thanks.

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Comments

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booksaboutthesame t1_iv0y26p wrote

Sand is cheaper. The various salts/brines are more expensive, have specific timing for when they need to be applied in order to be effective, are only effective within certain temperature ranges, and some are challenging to store.

There might also be local/state regulations about what can be put down (eg, if the roads are near a drinking water supply, etc.)

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dcbrowne1961 t1_iv0ynp9 wrote

I would thing that distance from the Quabbin watershed area is in play here.

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Tacoman404 t1_iv31vyc wrote

Likely. They tend to use sand because of this. Also using salt tends to attract deer and moose who lick it off the roads.

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richg0404 t1_iv3l0fk wrote

Hardwick and Petersham are close to the Quabbin Reservoir so I would guess there may be restrictions on the amount of salt that they can put down.

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Banea-Vaedr t1_iv107ax wrote

Can't use salt too much on Quabbin because it pipes into Boston untreated.

Also, differences in how they work. Sand provides traction on snowy terrain and makes it pack nice. Salt melts the snow. In places that aren't worth salt, they get Sand.

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ARoundForEveryone t1_iv21xqu wrote

It's usually a combination of cost (sand is cheaper than salt) and local freshwater (specifically reservoirs, where sand runoff from the roads isn't so bad, but salt can really mess with the wildlife in the lake/pond)

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March_Latter t1_iv2odwr wrote

I think it was the year before last that there was a severe shortage of salt. There are substitutes but so far I have not heard of anyone using Beet juice in New England.

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