Certain Ohio Department of Transportation trucks will be driving in circles during the upcoming season’s winter storms in metro Toledo.
Really big circles.
To beef up the department’s ice-melting capability on two main freeways, ODOT’s Lucas County garage and Northwood outpost will each assign four tank trucks — two apiece in each direction — to patrol a loop composed of I-75 and I-475 and spraying those roadways with liquid de-icer during as well as before storms.
ODOT’s District 2 leads the state in liquid de-icer use “and we’ve seen great success with it before, during, and after winter storms,” said Rebecca Dangelo, the Bowling Green-based district spokesman.
The tank trucks will be in addition to regular plow trucks spreading salt and plowing as needed, Ms. Dangelo said.
Winter weather got a somewhat early start in the region last week, with several storms that, while leaving no significant snow accumulation behind, delivered just enough frozen or freezing precipitation to create slick spots, particularly on bridges.
Ignazio Messina, a city spokesman, said the mix of sleet and snow that fell Thursday on Toledo was a bit more vigorous than expected, so “it took us a little more time to switch more crews from leaf collection to snow and ice.
“But in the end, crews did an outstanding job with all the routes,” Mr. Messina said.
Before last week’s weather, Toledo had 23,793 tons of salt on hand and another 24,000 tons scheduled for delivery early next month, he said. That’s more than the 42,579 tons it spread during the 2017-18 winter.
But the city is relying increasingly on liquid de-icers to cut down on salt use and make the salt it spreads more effective.
The city has begun using AquaSalina, a natural brine product marketed by a Cleveland-area company with several chloride compounds in it that are effective at melting ice down to -15 degrees, Mr. Messina said. That’s considerably colder than the 20-degree minimum for typical salt brine.
As of early last week, the city had 30,000 gallons of brine and 7,000 gallons of AquaSalina on hand.
Wetting rock salt with brine or brine mix, he added, improves the salt’s effectiveness by putting it to work faster and making it stickier, so it’s less likely to bounce off the pavement while being spread.
Lucas County Engineer Keith Earley said his department’s 14 plow trucks also are set up to apply brine to the salt as it passes through the spinners that spread it on roadways.
“Our sheds are full with 7,000 tons of salt, and 4,500 tons more available to order,” Mr. Earley said. “Unless we have an extreme winter, we should be fine.”
Along with its increasing reliance on liquid de-icer, ODOT is equipping plows it uses in rural areas with “extenders” on the blades that curl over the top to cut down on snow flying up into the air during plowing.
The devices work somewhat like mudflaps on big trucks, and Ms. Dangelo said they should improve plow drivers’ ability to see the roadway in front of them while pushing through snow.
“We’ve also seen a reduction in mailboxes damaged because the weight of the snow isn’t being directly thrown at them any more,” she said.
And after a pilot program several years long that included trucks assigned to Wood County, ODOT this year is installing global-positioning/vehicle-locating systems in its plow trucks.
The systems include forward-facing cameras that take pictures every five seconds and are capable of video streaming, Ms. Dangelo said. They also track vehicles’ speed, route, and salt usage.
“This system will allow ODOT to better delegate crews to areas of need in storms,” she said. “It is also beneficial to record the drivers’ routes and road conditions so we can continuously improve our snow and ice operations.”
First Published November 18, 2018, 10:49 p.m.
