Snowy Ada County roads were blue last winter. Illness complaints spurred ACHD changes
The brilliant white of snow took on a different color around Ada County last winter when roads were treated by the Ada County Highway District.
But the upcoming winter will feature less blue.
ACHD announced last month that it would reduce the use of blue-dyed road salt — a result of complaints from the public that the dye is toxic and causes illness.
“Our neighborhood for two years was getting doused in this mixture,” said Betsy Klene, who lives on a cul-de-sac in Boise’s East End, in a phone interview.
In previous years, before the salt contained the blue dye, Klene said she felt fine outside. But she noticed that whenever she saw the telltale color, she started to get dizzy and nauseous. She also said she got headaches and developed hives when close to the mixture. Because she never had a problem with road salt before, Klene said she figured the problem was this particular dye.
Vida Ober, Klene’s neighbor, has two Pomeranians that got sick last winter. When they licked their paws, covered in the blue salt, they coughed and sneezed, she said. One of the dogs’ eyes watered. Ober also told the Idaho Statesman that she blamed the dye and not the salt.
The dye contains a compound called ammonium vanadate, which is federally listed as a hazardous substance at certain concentrations. This compound also includes the element vanadium. Eating anything with vanadium, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “can cause nausea and vomiting” in people, and higher blood pressure in animals.
Vanadium is, however, present everywhere in low concentrations, including in cigarette smoke and some nutritional supplements.
TOXIC BLUE ROADS IN ADA COUNTY?
A press release from ACHD in July stated that the highway district started adding a blue dye to road salt to help the public and their staff figure out which roads had been treated during and after storms.
“This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t deals,” said Commissioner Kent Goldthorpe during the ACHD meeting on July 14, because people also have accused the agency of not salting the roads if they can’t see the blue.
Previously, ACHD had used a different dye, but noticed that it stained the roads. That’s why it switched to a product called Liquitint, which contains ammonium vanadate.
Albert Crawshaw, the waste and remediation manager at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, told the Idaho Statesman that ACHD is not disposing of the dye, so it isn’t considered a waste. If it were, DEQ would regulate the use of products with ammonium vanadate, which he said can be “toxic to humans and wildlife.”
Crawshaw said he reached this conclusion by looking at a safety sheet for the dye, which is publicly available.
According to ACHD, the quantity and diluted nature of the salt they have used falls “well below” the amounts that need to be reported, as set out by a federal law that regulates some hazardous compounds.
While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is still in the “early stages” of an assessment including ammonium vanadate, it has “not yet drawn any conclusions regarding potential human health hazards” from it, an EPA spokesperson told the Statesman.
The DEQ did recommend that ACHD no longer use the salt anywhere that might allow it to get directly into surface water.
NEXT WINTER, LESS DYE
When a few members of the public and a pair of neighborhood associations, for the East End and North End of Boise, complained about the dye, ACHD announced that it no longer would use the blue salt “on the Foothills or in the neighborhoods near the river.”
While ACHD’s initial announcement focused on areas with public complaints, in a follow-up email, Shandy Lam, deputy director of communications at ACHD, specified that the blue road salt also would not be used in “neighborhoods and areas where the storm drain discharges to the river or nearby waterways.”
The highway district still has not decided exactly where it might use the blue salt it still has — and that’s still a significant amount, officials said — but even where it is applied, ACHD plans to dilute it with salt that contains no dye.
“One of the things that we pride ourselves on here at the highway district,” said Goldthorpe during the July meeting, “is being responsive.”
By changing treatment locations, ACHD would be following the DEQ advice. But if there is a real danger to people or animals, then there might not be any safe areas to use it.
A SALT STOCKPILE
Right now, ACHD has 7,000 tons of dyed salt and 4,000 tons of a mixture of salt and sand that’s 30% dyed salt. According to Lam, ACHD uses an average of 2,115 tons of salt each winter.
Though ACHD was embroiled in a dispute with Garden City about where to store the salt and sand earlier this summer, the large stockpile is by design, according to Lam.
ACHD replenishes its supply at the end of each season, so there is enough on hand to treat roads during winters with heavy snowfall. The district also avoids buying salt and sand when there’s high demand, Lam said.
DEQ did request that ACHD voluntarily tell the agency where it plans to use the diluted blue salt this winter, so that water nearby could be tested to make sure there isn’t a contamination problem, according to Crawshaw.
