Beets

Chances are, there will be a lot of talk of brine this week. And while most conversations will focus on brining the turkey, landscapers in snow management think of brine a little differently. Increasingly used as a pre-treatment for roadways ahead of a winter weather event, brine is a solution of water and salt with a third ingredient thrown in to help the brine stick to the road surface. What that third ingredient is has become an interesting—and sometimes humorous—reflection of the geographic area in which it is used. In a search for cost effective and eco-friendly alternatives, brine recipes have come to involve all sorts of byproducts from the food industry, some of which may be gracing tables on Thursday. Reports of brine recipes since 2014 have included wine-making byproduct in Argentina; cheese byproducts in Wisconsin; potatoes in Tennessee; pickle juice in New Jersey; molasses in Maine and New Hampshire; and beet juice in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and North Dakota. So far, it seems, beet juice has had the most “sticking” power over the years. In Washington, D.C., this year’s District Snow Team consists of 882 employees, a 296-vehicle fleet (including 120 heavy plows, 100 light plows, and 46 100% biodiesel plows), 42,000 tons of salt, 86,000 gallons of brine and… 10,500 gallons of raw beet juice. (According to a 2015 article in the Washington Post, the recipe involves 23% salt, 62% water, and 15% beet juice. The 2014/15 winter required 25,000 gallons of beet juice, a budget item ...