Since the Dec. 1 snowstorm, the City of Madison has not spared a single grain of salt to de-ice city sidewalks or streets. In many parts of the city, post-blizzard pedestrian traffic compacted snow into ice sheets, while motorized traffic smoothed freezing rain into black ice. As a result, the Madison area had more than 100 automobile accidents and innumerable pedestrian injuries.
Although the city says reduced salting is necessary to protect drinking and lake water, current levels of sodium and chloride do not threaten human health. Given this is no excuse to ignore potential damage to aquatic organisms, the city must nonetheless consider the present threat to human safety. Icy streets are a critical and pressing health risk.
For more than 30 years, the city has pursued a program to reduce road salt use to 50 percent of the amount used in the winter of 1972-'73.
According to a Madison Road Salt Report, chemical biological processes do not remove chloride ions from dissolved road salt. As a result, chloride threatens to reach surface water or groundwater, and high concentrations threaten death for plants and fish. The city used this information to enact its plan to reduce the use of road salt.
Evidently, the city can use complex scientific evidence to develop constructive public policy. So why didn't it use common sense to do the same for Madison's first winter storm? The City of Madison Street Division knew that the wet snow would freeze into ice - it should have enacted a contingency plan (and perhaps used a little extra salt) to prevent the accumulation of ice.
Although the Street Division has a plan to cope with snow emergencies, the Dec. 1 storm calls its efficacy into question. For the remaining streets laden in ice, the only solution is salt delamination.
The City of Madison should be a seasoned pro at snow removal, but the outcome of the recent storm indicates a need to overhaul the street- and sidewalk-clearing process.
