Move over road salt, here comes a more environmentally-friendly way to keep our roads safe in the winter time. Lakeshore is looking at a mixture of salt and beet juice.
Councillor Steven Wilder says it's being used in other municipalities and with good reason. "You're able to put this application out there ahead of a snowstorm. By the time the snow hits the ground, it doesn't even have a chance to freeze. It melts almost right away and, in fact, there are some mixtures that last somewhere between two and five days as opposed to the plows needing to go out there every so many hours and apply more salt and more salt."
Wilder says the beet juice/salt mixture is less corrosive than salt alone, both to vehicles and bridges. It's also cheaper. " I've seen estimates that one application of the juice mixture might cost $3,600 or $3,700 whereas bringing the plows out to that area might cost $10,000 to $12,000 for salt."
Lakeshore administration is working on a report outlining the costs of switching to the beet juice mixture and outfitting trucks to handle it.