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, Sat, 13 Oct 2001 13:45:16
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Not being involved in the business, I'm sure that I really can't imagine the headaches of road gravel ending up in a sewage system not designed for it. I can only look to my experience for insight. My hometown is Spokane, a city of about 350k people if you include vast unincorporated outlying areas. While smaller in size, obviously, it doesn't seem drastically different from Pittsburgh. No salt is used in Spokane to my knowledge, and if it is it's only on a few streets in the heart of downtown. The combination of plowing and gravel seems to be more than sufficient to keep the main roads safe. I don't know of any sewer system problems. Now that I think about it, the main reason that Spokane may not use salt is because of where the drinking water comes from. The Aquifer is located directly beneath the city. A few years of road salting would undoubtedly increase the salt content of the water appreciably.
In contrast, Pittsburgh and outlying areas seem to just dump salt and chemical deicers everywhere without discresion. I've driven over piles (yes piles) of salt on the roads around here. When I came to Pittsburgh a few years ago, I looked out at the road and thought that there was a dusting of snow on the asphalt. Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was a thin layer of salt covering the entire road. In front of my house, there is a strip of what used to be grass between the curb and the sidewalk. Road salt ensures that it's almost completely dead. Salt use is not limited to the actual city where it makes some sense. Local highways and the entire length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike are regularly salted as well.
I like the heated roads idea that someone else posted. Not too far off, either. Some areas are steam heated, so the steam tunnels melt ice and snow pretty well. They're just not in the right places... :o)
posted by 151.201.2...
, Sat, 13 Oct 2001 13:45:16
, Sat, 13 Oct 2001 11:28:57
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