DPWs Attend Winter Roads Maintenance Workshop

Harding Township — It was standing room only at the October 22 Winter Roads Maintenance Workshop for Departments of Public Works hosted by the Great Swamp Watershed Association. Some 40 people attended this “best management practices” workshop on winter roads de-icing, with 13 area municipalities represented, including 9 of the 10 towns in the Great Swamp watershed. In addition, several local area residents, including representatives from the Parsons Village homeowners association in Morristown, came out to learn about alternatives to traditional de-icing practices that would help minimize the sodium and chloride (a.k.a. salt) washing into our streams as a byproduct of keeping our winter roads safe.

GSWA’s water quality testing during 2005-07 revealed especially high amounts of sodium and chloride in Loantaka Brook, as would be expected with runoff from roads treated with salt. Not only are sodium and chloride contamination levels higher in the winter months, but because salt can be retained in soil, it slowly leaches into shallow ground water and thus continues to seep into our water bodies throughout the year. Compounding the year-round presence of salt, is sand washing into our streams that affects oxygen levels for macroinvertebrates and other organisms critical to healthy waterways.

Kelley Curran, GSWA’s Director of Water Quality Programs invited an expert panel of speakers from product manufacturer Cargill Deicing Technology, Trius, Inc., vendor of equipment and programmable controls, the Hamilton Township Department of Public Works who has reduced its use of chloride employing best management practices, and United Water New Jersey, the workshop sponsor, who is using brine as an alternative to rock salt and sand at its facilities.

“We surveyed each of the 10 towns in the watershed about their current road de-icing methods to determine how our experts could help them develop best management practices for winter roads maintenance, including the use of programmable controls for the application of road salt and how brine, a mixture of salt and water used as a proactive anti-icing solution versus traditional reactive de-icing, has helped Hamilton Township reduce their salt usage by 67%,” said Ms. Curran.

According to Sally Rubin, GSWA’s Executive Director, “We are concerned about the year-round effects of sodium and chloride contamination in our streams, and I’m very happy with the number of local area municipalities interested in similarly effective yet more stream-friendly alternatives to traditional de-icing methods.”

Anyone interested in learning about winter roads maintenance “best management practices” can find presentations from each of the workshop’s panel of experts at www.greatswamp.org.

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Founded in 1981, the Great Swamp Watershed Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the water and land of the 36,000-acre watershed region in Morris and Somerset counties. The organization works to maintain the beauty and health of open space, and to monitor and protect five streams: Loantaka Brook, Great Brook, Primrose Brook, Black Brook, and the Upper Passaic — which feed into the Passaic River and providing drinking water to more than a million people.
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