{Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders} Re: Salting Roads

I didn't know that and it explains a lot, thanks. My coworkers who have kids in the public schools have been shaking their heads at some of the closure/delay decisions lately.  Grew up in PA , we had built-in snow days but I don't think it was nearly that many.  Maybe 5 or 7. It took several inches to even think about a delay - and the bus ride was uphill both ways ;-)

But getting back to road salt and brine, it would be nice if people could just use common sense and drive carefully in the snow, or better yet not have a need to drive in it at all so less salt and brine could be used - it's a pipe dream though. I'm curious about the alternatives Jeff mentioned and how much different they truly are from an environmental impact standpoint.

On Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 2:42:48 PM UTC-5, Andrew Chaney wrote:

Not to get off topic, but to your joke about school closings in this area: My wife is a teacher and her district has 14 snow days baked into the school year calendar. In other words, it will take more than 14 snow days before the school district needs to add days to the end of the school year to meet the state mandated number of classroom hours. While that number seems high for the DC area, we do occasionally have snow-heavy winters that justify it. However, we also have winters like this season that has had little to no snowfall. The thing is, if the district doesn't use all those snow days, they don't shorten the school year accordingly, so they're essentially lost days off.

Therefore, in seasons like this year, they have no problem issuing a snow day or a 2 hour delay at the drop of a hat because there's no way they're going to hit the 14 day threshold.

On Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 10:38:31 AM UTC-5, Andrew Sarcinello wrote:

It is definitely excessive along with schools closing any time a drop of something frozen falls from the sky...society is going soft!! Haha.

I agree fully with working remotely.  I suppose it is not possible in some fields but it is fairly easy to set up remote computer connections.  A big problem is so many drivers around here come from places with zero exposure to driving in snow.  Recently, a new roommate moved into my house and we were talking about how much it usually snows or doesn't snow.  She's from San Francisco and had no concept of winter, I told her I always hope it doesn't snow because traffic becomes a nightmare.  She asked why and I had to explain that when it snows you have to drive slower.........she had absolutely no idea.  This is what we're dealing with.

My company sometimes does water quality sampling.  We look at stormwater drainage networks that should normally be dry (for example, pipes that drain a parking lot) and if we find any flowing water, we sample it to make sure it isn't some sort of illegal chemical discharge.  We do quick tests on-site for pH, chlorine, ammonia, turbidity, temperature, and conductivity.  We have a set of guidelines for what range of values each test must fall within, and if anything is outside the standards we deem it suspicious and send it to a lab.  90% of the time, water that we find can be visually observed as groundwater coming through a crack in the pipe, but we still have to test it - and EVERY sample I've ever taken has failed the conductivity standard, even if everything else is perfectly normal.  I am not certain, but I believe this is a result of the excessive use of rock salt and brine on the roads in winter.  

On Thursday, February 8, 2018 at 10:07:34 AM UTC-5, Gregg DiSalvo wrote:

I, like most around the district, love to be able to get to work safely, but there has to be a better way to deal with snow and ice.  Offer employer incentives to encourage remote work, remote work, sand/gravel (may not actually be any better)...????

https://potomac.org/blog/2018/1/22/potomac-river-salt-salinity-study

"In our area, polluted runoff that carries road salt into rivers and streams is largely to blame. Despite receiving only 3 inches of snow this season, crews in the District have laid down over 15 tons of rock salt and 290,000 gallons of salt brine. And that's just this year."

Excessive don't you think?

--
http://www.tpfr.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Tidal Potomac Fly Rodders" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tidal-potomac-fly-rodders+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tidal-potomac-fly-rodders@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tidal-potomac-fly-rodders/a4abbd0a-0b4f-4d56-abbc-c3360ee78694%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.