MARKET INFORMATION
An over-arching trend in snowfighting is the increased use of salt brines instead of rock salt. Most of these brines are 23% solutions of sodium chloride (salt).
Use of salt brine can reduce salt consumption by 50% or more, reducing both material costs and chloride levels in the environment. Salt brine also allows for anti-icing techniques, enabling highway departments to treat roads before the storm hits. Brine “pre-treatments” slow the bonding of ice and snow to the road service, making it easier to plow off any accumulation. The short-term materials and labor savings afforded by salt brine enable public agencies to re-invest in corrosion inhibitors and, in turn, realize medium-term savings by avoiding the cost of repairing and replacing corroded fleet vehicles, snowfighting equipment and highway infrastructure.
In 2013, U.S. officials applied about 17 million tons of salt to roads, highways and bridges[1] at a calculated cumulative induced cost of corrosion equivalent to $8 billion. “The [direct] corrosion and environmental costs pertinent to road salts amount up to at least $632 per ton in today’s dollars, and they are often ignored in formulating highway winter maintenance strategies.”[2]
Both transportation departments and drivers pay for unmitigated corrosion costs. “Indirect costs to the user, such as traffic delays and lost productivity, were estimated to be as high as 10 times that of direct corrosion costs.”[3]
State and municipal departments of transportation and contract plow drivers are turning to non-toxic, biodegradable corrosion inhibitors to reduce these costs by over 70%.
[1] Roman, Lori, Salt Institute in “The Surprising History of Road Salt,” National Geographic, February 12, 2014. Accessed on 10-13-14 at http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140212-road-salt-shortages-melting-ice-snow-science/.
[2] Xianming Shi, David Veneziano, Ning Xie, and Jing Gong. “Use of chloride-based ice control products for sustainable winter maintenance: A balanced perspective.” Cold Regions Science and Technology 86 (2013) 104–112. Accessed 10-13-14 at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165232X12002200.
[3] Federal Highway Administration, 2002. Corrosion Costs and Preventative Strategies in the United States. Publication No. FHWA-RD-01-156. (Washington, D.C.). http://www.nace.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/ccsupp.pdf