Does Minnesota Salt Their Roads?
When Winter Comes and Snow and Ice Build up on Minnesota Roads, Parking Lots, and Sidewalks, One of the Most Common Reactions Is to Apply Salt, Which Contains...
When winter comes and snow and ice build up on Minnesota roads, parking lots, and sidewalks, one of the most common reactions is to apply salt, which contains chloride, a water pollutant. ... When snow and ice melts, the salt goes with it, washing into our lakes, streams, wetlands, and groundwater.
How much road salt is used in Minnesota?
The resulting amount of salt use was approximately 66,000 tons per year. The total amount of NaCl applied to roads in the TCMA per season is estimated at 349,000 tons per year. The breakdown is: cities at 33%, Mn/DOT at 23%, counties at 21%, commercial outfits (bulk) at 16%, and others at 5%.
What does Minnesota use on icy roads?
Sodium Chloride.
Sodium chloride is the most common deicer used in Minnesota and across the U.S. (Sleeper, 2013). The Water Resources Center at UMN estimates that 403,600 tons of road salt are used each season in Minnesota, and that 249,100 tons of road salt are used in the TCMA (Overbo et al. 2019).
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