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Today I Learned @lemmy.world Potatos_are_not_friends @lemmy.world 12 mo. ago

TIL that salt rock, the stuff used during winter, helped contribute to the Flint Water Crisis

www.theverge.com How the Flint River got so toxic

The Flint water crisis did not begin on April 25th, 2014, when the city switched its water supply from Detroit’s system, tapping Lake Huron to its own on the Flint River. That tragic mistake was...

How the Flint River got so toxic

Road salt on the city’s bridges raised the river’s chlorine levels, making the water more corrosive. This has continued into the present and may have been one reason poorly-treated Flint River water was so damaging to metal pipes.

I shared this because my city doesn't use rock salt during winter, and its pretty inconvenient as a driver. So I was surprised to learn why.

It's disingenuous to say it's the PRIMARY contributor, but it is a factor!

29 comments

Same thing caused the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse* in Minneapolis. Take cues from the Norwegians and Swedes; crushed rock for traction, spiked tires for traction and no chemical salt to fuck up your land and waterways.

Snow was here before humans and will continue long after we exterminate ourselves from the planet. Learn to live with it and stop fighting nature.

Edit: a word*
- It also rusts the shit out of cars which is why 3 year old cars from the midwest resemble 30 year old cars from the west coast. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated all the lost capital caused by salting roads. I bet it's insanely high with the infrastructure and property damage alone.
  
  I was stunned moving to Chicago from Tulsa! Back home we only use sand, which is annoying as hell as it doesn't go away as easily.
  
  But damn, cars rusted out overnight. The crappy minivan I drove down to Florida had to be trashed within 2-months of arriving. Undercarriage so rotten it wasn't sane to repair the brakes. And that was after a fuel line popped a week before!
  
  Wondered why I didn't see many old cars in Chicagoland.
- This would require people in America to learn how to drive in the snow (or just stay the fuck at home if they won't learn) and we won't have that. I instead, if I lead-foot myself into a telephone pole in the snow I'll sue!!!!!
- Source for the claim about the I-35W bridge?
  
  Edit: As plantsmakemehappy@lemmy.world pointed out, the below is not, in fact, for the I35W bridge.
  
  Page 96: “ The investigation identified the source of the failure as corrosion of the L8' gusset plates, which had resulted in significant section loss and had penetrated completely through the plates at some locations. It was determined that a leaking joint above panel point U9' had allowed salt-contaminated water to run down diagonal U9-L8' to the lower chord gusset plates. The years of corrosive runoff had resulted in crevice corrosion, the byproduct of which had manifested itself as thin sheets of layered rust. Additionally, oxygen-rich corrosion cells had started to take root along the vertical faces at the insides of the gusset plates. The result was a line of section loss that rendered the gusset plates incapable of handling the additional loads created by the maintenance project on the day of the incident. The investigation revealed that the blooms of oxidation concealed perforations in the base metal such that the extent of corrosion could not be, and had not been, adequately assessed through visual bridge inspections.
The DOT around my area has started using cheese brine to pre treat the roads and it has been doing a pretty decent job.
- Do you live in WI? I am from there and that sounds like the most Wisconsin sentence ever haha!
  
  Oh ya
- I mean, that's just salt water.
  
  Cheese flavored salt water.
Being in Wisconsin as well, I always wonder how the environment copes with crazy amount of salt that gets used on the roads during bad winters. We've had winters where they ran out of salt and started using sand.
- Salting the roads is just another stupid thing we do to destroy everything around us
  
  https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/11/road-salt-harms-environment/
Long but great read. Thanks for sharing.
One more reason to not have cars.
- Do you just bike and walk in ice all winter?
  
  "JuSt TaKe PuBlIc TrAnSiT!"
  
  Oh wait, they shut that down in my state the instant the first flurry hits the ground. "For safety."
  
  Sled dogs and x-country skis
  
  You think it doesn't snow in Scandinavia?
  
  Not op, but yes? Like people have been doing since homo erectus first migrated to snowy places?

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