Smart Salting
The Wisconsin Salt Wise Partnership developed a Winter Maintenance Application Rates and Guidance for Parking Lots, Sidewalks and Trails website that provides salt application guidelines and strategies as well as a calculator to determine application rates based on the temperature and product being applied.
The Smart Salting Assessment Tool (formerly the Winter Maintenance Assessment tool) was developed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency based on known salt-saving best management practices. It's a free, web-based tool that can be used to assist public and private winter maintenance organizations in determining where opportunities exist to improve practices, make reductions in salt use, and track progress. You can find additional resources on the agency website.
The Lake George Association in New York developed Winter Road Maintenance Best Practices for Water Quality Protection to reduce salt use. Best practices include using brine where practical, calibrated spreaders on trucks, and wider use of road temperature sensors. Learn more.
Certification for Salt Applicators
The city of Madison, Wisconsin, offers a voluntary Winter Salt Certification Program for snowplow drivers and contractors who maintain private/public walkways and/or parking lots and service roads to ensure they follow the most recent best management practices.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency not only provides certification for salt applicators, both for highway applications and public/private applicators, it also offers homeowners a downloadable list of certified salt applicators for hire to encourage homeowners to use vendors that follow best practices.
Understanding the Corrosion Connection
Michigan Radio offers a helpful overview of what drinking water pipes look like with and without corrosion control and the use of phosphate as a corrosion inhibitor for metal pipes.