Disaster ResponseFeaturedIndustry NewsLawn Mowing Maintenance and Lawn CareLoaders, Excavators & TractorsMaintenanceManufacturer/Supplier UpdatesProductsProducts and EquipmentThe Latest
Bobcat Introduces TL623 Telehandler
Jessica Schwartz
Hitting The Road: Brine, Beets & Other Thanksgiving Treats
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 ...
Hitting The Road: Brine, Beets & Other Thanksgiving Treats
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 ...
Chemistry 101: Rock Salt And Liquids
By Wilf Nixon Rock salt is everywhere in winter maintenance, which makes it important to understand how it works when we use it, and what it can (and cannot) do. Let’s start by dispelling the myth that “liquids don’t work.” The first thing to know about rock salt is it is soluble in water. It can’t work effectively until it forms a liquid solution! Rock salt + water = Brine. That solution will have a lower freezing point than pure water. How much lower that freezing point depends on how much rock salt is added to the water. 2.2 pounds of rock salt + 1 gallon of water = Solution that is 23 percent salt by weight. 6.02°F = The lowest freezing point we can get from mixing salt with water under ideal situations (e.g., in a laboratory). In practice, out on the road or on a parking lot, don’t expect to see brine effectively melting ice at those low temperatures. It’s not designed to melt ice Rock salt does not melt much ice — but it does not need to in order to be effective. What if we have a one-acre lot with a pavement temperature of 23°F? If we spread 200 pounds of rock salt over that parking lot, it will melt about one-hundredth of an inch of ice — not much, but plenty to stop the snow or ice from freezing to the surface. Even with that low of an application rate, rock salt will achieve its ...
