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Like Magic: Chemical
enhancement makes rock salt more effect
Author: Aidan Levy
Journal Inquirer
Published January 2005
New England highway workers have added a new trick
to their repertoire: Magic Salt, a tonic for the times. And they’re
not the only magicians in the business.
Freezing rain, snow, sleet – a familiar refrain
for another grueling Connecticut winter – are rarely coupled
with the earthy smell of molasses. This season, however, a substance
that resembles the syrupy, southern sluice is cropping up on treacherous
streets and parking lots throughout New England as those responsible
for snow and ice removal increasingly turn to Magic Salt, a juiced-up,
purportedly more effective variation of conventional rock salt.
Currently, no Connecticut towns have made the switch,
but Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor has used Magic Salt for the
past three years.
“I love it. It gives you some residue that
buys you time in the middle of a snowstorm and it doesn’t
let the ice adhere to the pavement after it’s applied,”
says Steve Bianchi, grounds superintendent for the school. “It
has a tendency to smell like molasses, but it doesn’t last
long.”
A chemist discovered the product in the dead of
winter behind a Hungarian vodka distillery, where a pond laced
with the discarded, gritty mash – an agricultural byproduct
of the distillation process that oozed from the building’s
pipes – miraculously never froze.
The chemist manipulated the sugary swill, blending
it with magnesium chloride, another de-icer, and converted it
into a potent brown syrup that could be applied to rock salt to
better prevent dangerous road conditions. Later, the chemist found
that Magic Salt is not limited to vodka. The range of possible
alcoholic beverages that can be used is infinite.
In 1997, Sears Ecological Applications Co. of Rome,
N.Y., bought the patent and licensed it to Innovative Municipal
Products Inc., also based in Rome, the only current U.S. manufacturer.
“By being able to melt the ice faster, you
can cut down on your operating expense with equipment and manpower,”
says Robert St. Jacques, president of Four Seasons Landscaping
and operations manager of St. Jacques Family Enterprises, based
in Windsor. St. Jacques is one of five Connecticut distributors
of the product. “You get two to three times the melt by
using about half the salt product.”
In addition, Magic Salt has fewer environmental
hazards. In fact, it has none of the harmful effects caused when
conventional rock salt spreads onto roadside vegetation areas
or ponds. Also, unlike conventional rock salt, Magic Salt does
not corrode concrete and steel.
“The big benefit is increasing service levels
and reducing the amount of chloride emissions,” says Tim
Dyck, vice president of sales and marketing for Innovative Municipal.
Dyck points to Canada, one of the world’s leaders in this
technology, where the government controls the use of rock salt
in municipalities. Many towns have also curbed sand and grit use,
says Dyck, due to severe environmental repercussions that surpass
those caused by rock salt, in addition to using Magic Salt.
“It’s very friendly as far as the environment
goes,” says Scott C. Lappen, Windsor Locks director of Public
Works. “I’ve actually seen people stick their finger
in the stuff and eat it.”
Some proponents of Magic Salt claim that it is effective
down to negative 30 degrees, compared to conventional rock salt,
which is useless if the temperature dips below 18 degrees. Lappen
takes these claims with a grain of salt, however.
“What their Web site says and what’s actually practical
differs,” says Lappen. “That’s what we’ve
seen in the field anyway.”
Yet Lappen’s doubts have not deterred him
from heavily considering establishing a salt route in Windsor
Locks, on account of a 10 percent price hike in road salt this
year and a 67 percent hike in the price of sand.
The town has a budget of approximately $47,000 for
snow and ice removal materials – $11,000 more than last
year – and a similar cost for labor. With the continuing
inflation in the sand and salt markets, however, Lappen says using
Magic Salt could be a cost-effective move. Even though the product
is more expensive, Lappen projects that the change will lower
sand usage and defray the cost of cleanup in the spring.
New York and the Pacific Northwest were quick to
switch to Magic Salt, but the product is not so commonplace in
New England.
Gradually, towns in New Hampshire and Vermont have
begun to use it, with Massachusetts implementing an aggressive
Magic Salt campaign in 25 towns and on the Mass Turnpike.
Pepperrell, Mass., began supplementing conventional
rock salt and sand with Magic Salt five years ago. “If cost
was no object, I guarantee we would use it on every foot of roadway,
but we have to be judicious in its use,” says Bob Lee, director
of Public Works. As far as working down to negative 30 degrees,
Lee can’t verify that claim. “When it gets really,
really cold, it’s usually dry. How many times does it snow
when it’s 30 below zero?”
Bean Town, however, is reluctant to prescribe its
dose of southern seasoning.
“There’s a certain degree of skepticism,”
says Joseph Casazza, commissioner of Public Works for Boston.
“Our experience with a similar product a couple years ago
had adverse qualities.”.
Content © 2005 The
Journal Inquirer. |
