The headline: “Sand on roads worse than salt, environmentalists say.”
The reality: One environmentalist—Doug Myers of People for Puget Sound—said that a small amount of salt wouldn’t likely impact Puget Sound, but that it would harm other creeks and waterways in the Puget Sound region. Moreover, the group hasn’t taken any position on salt vs. sand.
So who are these multiple “environmentalists” who say salt is better than sand? Apparently, they exist only in Times reporters Susan Kelleher and Warren Cornwall’s overactive imaginations. The two reporters did manage to find one academic to support Frank Blethen’s bizarre pro-salting crusade—sort of. That academic, a professor in Ohio, said that dumping sand into the Sound would be worse than salting. But SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan noted that the city actually sweeps up all the sand… meaning the Ohio professor was asked to respond to a question that has nothing to do with Seattle’s actual policy.
The reality, continued: Sand vs. salt is a decades-old debate with outspoken advocates on both sides, but the bottom line is that salt is an environmental toxin hazardous to aquatic life, and sand is considered effective in places, like Seattle, where long periods of snow pack are expected.
We would be salting the roads for all of a week or two per entire year. Big frickin’ deal. I’m as green as a Martian, but for chrissakes, salt the frickin’ roads and do all you can to limit the damage.
Lets see…
Considering the fact that the shelves on the Broadway QFC are empty because they couldn’t get any shipments (I do mean bare, as in no dairy, no lots of things). Considering Metro can’t move around because of the roads. Considering I can’t get a cab.
If we can’t salt the road, anybody have a better idea? Seems to me salt is perfect for stuff like this. We dont have to maintain it like snow plows (which would sit idle for 99.9% of the year). We dont have to really store it year round. We just have to buy it, and dump it on the roads every 5 years when this happens.
But seriously. QFC was empty. Makes me re-think my emergency planning. I always assumed QFC would be fairly well stocked during a real emergency. Seeing the store as it is today, I am probably going to be stocking up on more stuff in my apartment and *not* assume QFC will save my ass in an earthquake.
But yeah. Salt baby. Once every five years isn’t gonna hurt anything. Salt that bitch.
@1, there’s no changing ECB’s mind on this. Any further attempts to do so in comments rank as exercises nearly as tiresome as her actual posts.
How can we say we live in a “city” when in a situation like this current snow the entire infrastructure of the “city” grinds to a halt. I have not gotten any mail delivered to my house since LAST WEDNESDAY. UPS and FedEx are not delivering to my house. (No Christmas presents have arrived yet! No cards! No paychecks!) No buses are running on my nearest arterial. Why? Because the “city” doesn’t remove snow and compacted snow, which becomes six inches of ice. It wants us to wait until it melts. (Of course, rich people living on hills have had the snow removed, but not here…)
If snowfall in Seattle is only one or two days, no biggie. But it’s going more than a week, and people can’t get around, people can’t get to the store, to the pharmacy, people who are less mobile than others due to age, health issues, etc., if all that is true, then the city needs to drastically rethink its approach to dealing with snow.
Global warming causes climate change, and so in Seattle we are getting hotter, drier summers, and wetter, colder winters. Snow on the hills is only going to get worse, not better. We need to rethink how the city deals with snow.
And the next time a city employee claims they are working on side streets, please ask them which side streets exactly are being cleared, because none around here have been.
sweeps up sand from the catch basins that in 10 months time will be clogged with silt. yeah right. ECB FAIL.
god forbid salt gets added to salt water.
So Erica slams the Times for sourcing ONE environmentalist, while Erica sources NOBODY. But that’s ok, cause she knows everything.
Salt is an environmental toxin? WTF? YOU LIVE NEXT TO PUGET SOUND.
Easy for a telecommuter to say.
@5, even though some of it will go into freshwater like Lake Union/Washington, I still say salt it.
Now, I’m as pro-environment as any, but I think our lakes and sound can take a few days of salty run-off every couple of years.
The whole thing is a wedge issue to keep us busy instead of actually fixing the problem. Really, who cares what we use as long as we can clear routes for trucks (who stock our grocery stores so you can eat) and buses (who we assume will function no matter what).
But seriously. Salt. Unless you have a better idea. “Stay at home” only works for a day or so. Even then, if the grocery store I walk to has nothing on its shelves because the shippers can’t get there, that kinda sucks doesn’t it?
oh, here it comes…
Half of these comments are going to come from people who would argue the Earth is flat if it meant they got to argue with ECB.
Meanwhile, day SIX of zero bus or taxi service to my neighborhood…
@10, the earth is flat. Round-earth is a liberal myth pushed by global warming activists like Gore. Obama even things we orbit around the sun!
Palin would have ended this if we weren’t such damn lemmings brainwashed by the liberal media. If Palin was president right now instead of Obama, our streets would be clean and liberals like ECB would be out of a job. All we are stuck with is groups like ACORN whose policies have left us with no salt, crappy rubber plows and $700 billion bailouts for people who the government forced banks to loan money to.
Good thing I live in rural kansas instead of commie Seattle. I’ll be back, there is a baby deer walking by my property and I need something for dinner.
The Times is trying to save itself with crusading yellow journalism. I mean worse than before their latest lurch towards oblivion.
The P-I wrote a response article, childishly not mentioning the Times at all. They quote that self-promoting weatherman guy, talking out his ass about how the salt water of the Sound is just salt water, right below where they explain that the salt water of the Sound needs to be less salty than the ocean.
Doug Myers, of the environmental group People for Puget Sound … said he is concerned about the impact on creeks that feed the Sound because they may contain species sensitive to salt or creatures already compromised by toxic chemicals.
I am so fucking sick and tired of hearing ignorant whiners screech “Puget Sound is salt water! I think it would be totally fine! I can’t imagine that it would do any harm!”
I know this violates the spirit of the SLOG comments, but I need to say it: unless you’ve got some actual experience in environmental science or city planning, do us all a favor and keep your useless opinions to yourself, OK?
@ 10:
That’s bullshit. When she’s right, she’s right. This isn’t one of these times. She’s knee deep in her own bullshit and digging herself deeper as fast as ahe can.
Nobody DISPUTES that TOO MUCH salt is bad. ECB continues to defend the insane position that NO salt, ever, must be permitted, anywhere, at any time, or for any reason or — ZOMG! THE SOUND IS FUCKED FOREVER!
That’s just fucking retarded, and as long as she continues to beat this drum, I’ll keep beating on her.
Shorter ECB: LOOK! OVER THERE! Susan Kelleher and Joel Connelly are full of shit, so I must be right!
No, dearie. Sorry. You’re no less full of shit than you were yesterday.
Reality, continued: sand is NOT effective in Seattle.
Salt! Salt! Salt!
Seriously…once every 5 years. The world will not end.
Also.
There is a connection between difficulty of zooming across town at will, and the happy uptick in neighborhood businesses in Ballard and West Seattle, and that viaduct. Maybe staying close to home is a good thing.
I would be interested to see someone crunch the numbers along the lines of: x amount of salt used per event raises saline level in the sound by x%.
Napalm works better than sand or salt.
Granted, I don’t know anything at all about snowstorms, but most of the people here arguing for salt seem to not recognize the inconsistency of their arguments. You say it wouldn’t be too much harm to use salt one or two days a year, or every few years, and that may or may not be true. But you go on to say that it needs to be taken care of because it’s been snowing for a week already. If the city had chosen to salt on the first day, they’d have done it more than twice by now. And who’s saying it’s not going to snow some more?
in places, like Seattle, where long periods of snow pack are expected.
Really, we expected long periods of snow pack? Since when?
Where are we gonna put our five year salt stores and fleet of snow plows?
Let’s pave over Fremont! Solve two problems at once.
“Of course, rich people living on hills have had the snow removed”
Single most stupid thing I’ve read during this entire debate.
And it’s hard to top the “but Puget sound is salt water!” idiots.
SDOT claims they pick up ALL the sand after the storm, ECB? Quite an exaggeration, methinks; probably on your part. I suspect what SDOT really said is we sweep up the sand after the storm, i.e. they sweep up SOME of it.
I’d really like to know, of the thousands of tons of sand deposited on Seattle streets, what percentage actually gets swept up afterwards??? My guess would be somewhere in the range of 10 – 20%.
@18, @14 will do that for you. She has some actual experience in environmental science or city planning.
since she does, please also have her explain the impact of sand buildup in non-combined catch basins. then please ask her how it is possible to sweep up sand inside the catch basins. it would also be interesting to hear how many at risk plant and animal species in the creeks are in winter dormancy, and how high the salt levels will be when they break dormancy.
We should salt the Blethens. From day 1 of this city the Blethens and their rag have been pro anything that was environmentally irresponsible: the regrades, using Lk Washington as sewer, turning the Duwamish into one big superfund site. Salt the blethens like you salt slug and watch them and their worthless rag whither.
the big difference:
salt makes everything taste better. sand does not.
Don’t salt the roads, but if I see you skiing with your child in a Chariot or complain about your bus not arriving, I’m going to write a nasty, derisive post about it.
The sand sticks in my craw.
@25 – My guess would be somewhere in the range of 10 – 20%.
And I repeat: who the fuck cares about your guesses? Unless you have some facts to back that up — and I’m certainly willing to listen if you do — you’re just another fucking whiner who thinks their personal preferences should dictate city policy.
@20, you are odd commenter out here on Slog. To blend in, please replace your logic and spirit of neutral inquiry with invective and hyperbole. Thank you.
Heh, I love you Slog. Everyone’s an expert, everyone’s got an asshole, er, opinion!
(And ECB is wrong and should STFU).
When in the hell has The City of Seattle ever swept anything off its streets–dry or otherwise? Branches, leaves, dust, sand gather in the gutters year after year.
@26 — I, unlike the commenters I’m bitching about, have not suggested than my uninformed guesses are worthwhile debate. Do you have actual facts to back up your hunches about the environmental impacts on catch basins and dormant species? As @18 said, it would sure as hell be nice to hear them if you do.
Good news, guys! I found a great place to store the new salt and plows facility: Seattle Center! Key Arena will become a large salt silo and the Space Needle will be equipped with nozzles to spray deicer all over Queen Anne.
Until I moved to Seattle in August, I’d spent my whole life in places that get real winter – Ohio, Boston, New York. (I know – that makes me an evil easterner who should keep my mouth shut if I have any opinion or observation about “the way things are done here,” right?) I’d always accepted salt residue as just a part of winter. The city salts the roads – ALL the roads – during and after snowfall, the snow turns to ugly slush, everyone goes on with their lives. Businesses and homeowners are fined for not clearing their sidewalks, but that’s outrage for another post.
If Seattle had salted the roads on Thursday and maybe where necessary over the weekend, this city never would’ve come to the standstill it has. But I think it’s wonderful that we’re pausing to think about the environmental impact of salt and sand. Have any studies been done of coastal cities that do salt their streets? Because the findings in cities like Boston or New York should be significant – they’re dropping a hell of a lot more than we would ever need to, in more extreme conditions, over a longer period of time.
Sand has totally done the trick in Issaquah, and I live on a steep part of Squak Mt- much steeper than almost anything in Seattle.
Seems the problem in Seattle isn’t sand vs salt but rather the city skimping on the sand. As alluded to in the original Times piece. Whenever I see a picture of a road in the city, you can’t tell it’s been sanded. Issaquah streets look like slanted beaches right now.
@20: I think that argument is a little stupid. Even two or three weeks of salting is not going to destroy the delicate environmental balance. The northeast and midwest salt all winter and are still major agricultural areas. If you’re in Tampa, you can’t see what a mess it is here. Trust us, unless you’re on the right road in the right neighborhood it looks bad.
more plows, and plows that actually scrape the road clear, would be much more effective than salt.
This will all be forgotten by most of you this weekend, if the temperatures do creep up to the 40s F.
Have fun, Ren Hoeks of Seattle.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44…
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
Give it a rest, Slog.
http://crosscut.com/2008/12/24/climate/1…
So, ECB, if sand is considered effective, WHY HAVE THERE BEEN NO BUSES OR TAXIS TO OR FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD IN SIX DAYS? I live in Madison Valley. Unless you have an SUV, or a car and a death wish, or crampons, a lot of people have been stranded down here. Those of us that rely on public transit have been screwed, with basically no option to get around, except to traverse the slippery sidewalks.
Considered effective? SERIOUSLY? What fucking planet are you on?
…salt is an environmental toxin hazardous to aquatic life, and sand is considered effective…
Well, it looks like the Seattle Times has found a whiny environmentalist they can quote.
Well I know we can’t have more plows, because as it has been said, they would sit for 99.9% of the year.
But even if the city of Seattle just had 1 or 2 snowplow trucks…. couldn’t they at least clear downtown over the course of 3 FUCKING DAAAAAAAAAAYSSSS?
Travel a slow go in snow (Detroit): http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art…
More snow and bitter cold in forecast (Chicago): http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/…
Tell me, Erica: Are you really as unglued as you appear to
be from your insane postings about salt or are you just writing these to stir up controversy and increase readership?