Friday, October 21st - Safe Driving Versus The Environment...

In an article published in the Vail Daily on October 4th, 2005 it was reported that sand/salt mixtures used for traction is causing serious environmental problems in local streams. The article states, "The non-native sand, that now stands several feet deep in some portions of the stream, is a leftover from road construction and erosion from Interstate 70. The sand is spread over the interstate to add traction to the often icy pass and stored on the side of the road. Unhealthy for the existing ecosystem, Randall Tucker and his crew at Streamside Systems will suck the sand until they hit rock bottom, he said.  

The Colorado Department of Transportation has used sand mixed with salt “since the beginning of time” to provide traction on icy winter roads, said agency spokeswoman Stacey Stegman. For the transportation agency, there are no easy answers to making sure the interstate is safe while also looking out for the environment, Stegman said. “Each method has its downside,” she said. “We use all of them in limited quantities to get the safest roads that we can.”  

With the development of liquid, chemical deicers in the 1980s, many roads received the new concoction. However, in colder locations with a large amount of snow pack, the liquid deicer was rendered less effective, and it was back to sand and salt.  

"We would have to use truckloads of (liquid) deicer for it to be effective up there,” said Stegman, who also said, "large quantities of liquid deicer would harm water, vegetation and human health. It’s not a good product to have in the environment.” To compensate for spreading sand on roadways, Stegman said the transportation agency has and continues to spend millions to help repair the harmful environmental effects of sand.  

With deicing chemicals now being used as dust control, the question of what environmental and health effects are occurring from the chemicals being present 24 hours a day, 365 days a year remains unanswered. While hundreds of fish have died from runoff of roads treated with these chemicals, arsenic, barium and other hazardous chemicals found in runoff from treated roads, and complaints by residents of severe damage to native vegetation, the official stance, which is entirely based on irrelevant studies on the chemicals limited use as a deicer, is that the lessening of dust saves lives and is more important than health and environment. The adverse effects of liquid deicer is being minimized and in some instances as with dust control, completely ignored.   

Even more disturbing is the actions of the National Forest Service, local health departments and other government agencies, which appear to many to be, efforts to hide the true facts and dangers from the public, and attempts at discrediting valid testing and evidence. If millions of dollars are being spent each year to clean up environmental problems form these substances, and if the State knows how bad it is on the environment, then why is this practice continued? The answer is very simple, to retain government funding from the Clean Air Act. So the truth is, "they are selling out our health and environment for money, period."