Different perspectives on using salt brine as road pre-treatment in El Paso County for latest winter storm
Scott Harrison
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — Crews with the county and with the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) routinely use salt brine to pre-treat streets and roads before winter storms arrive.
However, in preparation for this late-week storm, the county applied the brine, but CDOT decided against it.
The difference in strategy, apparently, relates to when each agency expects snow to accumulate.
Crews apply salt brine — water with roughly a 25% salt mixture — to prevent ice and snow from bonding with pavement, making it easier for plows to remove.
“We didn’t feel it was the best approach for the storm,” said CDOT spokeswoman Amber Shipley. “It’s a timing issue with temperatures. The efficiency of salt brine drops (as temperatures drop). The traveling public can rest assured that our teams are ready to tackle the flakes as they fall.”
Temperatures began falling in the early afternoon on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the county sent six trucks — each equipped with an 800-gallon tank of salt brine — to apply the liquid.
“It’s just resources and timing,” said Tim Stickel, a county highway manager. “Being as efficient as we can, getting out there trying to get all those roads, our resources. You know how big our county is. Trying to make sure we can hit them all, so we can reduce that potential bond as best we can. So, everybody has their own little tweaks to the procedures.”
He said that crews normally apply salt brine a few days before a storm.
“And too late is usually when you’re already in the middle of the storm. It’s not effective like magnesium chloride or some of the other products that are out there. So, it’s not a good de-icer. It’s a good pretreatment.”
The county and CDOT said that salt brine is effective, inexpensive to make, and isn’t as harsh as chemicals such as magnesium chloride.
Still, CDOT uses magnesium chloride — primarily on highways during storms — because nothing works better at ice removal.
CDOT began using salt brine in 2018, and the county started the following year.
Both entities add a rust inhibitor to the brine to protect vehicles.
Colorado Springs doesn’t use brine, and officials planned to hold a news conference Friday morning to discuss their storm preparations.