Conn. Lawmakers Urged to Study Road Salt Alternatives

Connecticut truckers implored the state’s General Assembly to order the Department of Transportation to investigate side effects from the use of magnesium chloride to melt snow and ice on roads and to seek alternative treatments.

A fleet executive and member of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut said his group appears to have picked up allies among the state’s local governments. The state’s transportation commissioner said his department has been looking at the issue, but there are no obvious alternatives.

“We’re asking the Connecticut DOT to prepare a study on alternatives, and the possible use of additives to mitigate corrosion. Magnesium chloride is a most serious problem,” MTAC President Michael Riley said in an interview after his Feb. 28 testimony before the legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee.

“In the past several years, we’ve noticed a significant increase in corrosion,” said Bob Hamilton, director of fleet maintenance for Bozzuto’s Inc., a Cheshire, Conn., wholesale grocery distributor.

“I think we’re really starting to gain some traction on this. We put damaged parts on display for TV camera crews,” said Hamilton, whose private fleet includes more than 200 tractors and more than 500 trailers. He also noted that the Danbury Fire Department and municipal governments told the joint committee their vehicles have been deteriorating, as have private-sector trucks.

“The legislators were polite four years ago when I testified on this, but having several other agencies coming in brought us more credibility. I think this really got the committee’s attention,” said Hamilton, who has studied corrosion as part of the Technology & Maintenance Council of American Trucking Associations.

The Associated Press reported that ConnDOT has been using magnesium chloride since 2006. Before that, the state used a mixture of 3.5 pounds of sand for each pound of salt, Transportation Commissioner James Redeker said.

There is consensus that magnesium chloride does a fine job of dissolving snow and ice, much better than sand and salt or salt alone. The problem, said MTAC’s Riley, is that the compound also eats away vehicle parts, roads and bridges.

“Ten-year components are obsolete in five. It’s insidious, it gets into the vehicle’s electronics and even structural members of trucks,” he said, adding that the compound attacks concrete and the steel re-bar used to strengthen it.