Since this seems to be a growing conversation, a couple of points as food for thought.
As with everything else involving politics and public works, we have to ask ourselves when considering taking action - "what are the TRADEOFFS for taking a proposed action?" Or "Every benefit has a cost; what is it in this case?" It's not only the impact on the town budget (for the salt, and for the DPW crew's time). It's also about SAFETY. What's the cost of avoiding an accident? Every year, 1,300 people are killed and 116,800 people are injured due to vehicle accidents on snow, slushy or icy pavement. What's the cost of a life lost, or injury suffered? What about the cost of damaging or destroying a vehicle - and whatever the vehicle hits? Pedestrians struck in crosswalks or on sidewalks? Damaged telephone poles, buildings, signs, parked cars? And let's not forget the massive associated costs - lawsuits. Why do businesses seemingly always "oversalt" their parking lots, roads and paths? Because it's a really, really common and easy-to-win lawsuit. The cost of putting down ice melt is a tiny, tiny cost of paying for a lawsuit, even with insurance. Indeed, some insurance policies require plowing and salting. So, from the Town's perspective - the "cost" for salting the roads is a combination of the actual expense for the salt, the cost for DPW time (and amortized expense of running salters), and, arguably, the externality cost of having some degree of "excess" salt entering into water. The "benefit" of salting, even salting to "excess", is the avoidance of lawsuits, and avoiding more accidents, causing harm to life, limb and property. Avoiding excessive salting is a good thing! But if the Town is unable to lay down some perceived "perfect" quantity of salt, given the constantly changing weather conditions, surely it'd be better to oversalt by some degree, given the inherent risks? I urge everyone concerned about this issue to study NOT ONLY the impact of road salt on water and wildlife, but also take into account the impact of a life lost - perhaps a friend or loved one - as well as the economic impact from these accidents. HTH, --Dennis
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