Trudeau letter: Salt on roadways

Over the years whenever I saw a car or truck in various stages of salt corrosion I knew that vehicle came from some place other than Idaho, almost certainly from the East or Midwest. In those regions cars often look like rusted heaps of junk. Bridges collapse due to the ravages of salt corrosion. Power lines short out from salt mist in the air. It appears that the Idaho Department of Transportation is leading our state in that direction, as evidenced by the mountains of salt that have appeared at Department of Transportation facilities around the state in the last couple of years. I believe this is a recent change in policy, inasmuch as the department used to use salt sparingly mixed with sand.

Salted roads are safer roads you might argue. I don’t think so. Salted roads ice up also, but may give drivers a false sense of security. The thought of purchasing a new car and exposing it to the effects of salt is foreign to me. Remember, those mountains of salt are going to end up in Idaho rivers.

Salt is for popcorn, not Idaho’s roadways.

This story was originally published January 3, 2018 at 3:25 PM with the headline "Trudeau letter: Salt on roadways."