PORT ANGELES – Every year at this time, representatives from the DOT, Clallam and Jefferson Counties, Olympic National Park, multiple cities and tribes, plus law enforcement, public works and fire districts, 34 people in all, get together to talk about preparing for winter road maintenance. That meeting was Tuesday of this week.

As you might guess, coordinating all those agencies so that they work together as seamlessly as possible is no small job. The DOT alone maintains 669 miles of highway with 15 plow trucks in the two-county area, and the counties and cities have crews of their own to handle roads and streets.

We spoke with DOT Maintenance Superintendent Steve Russell with the idea of doing a story about what was discussed at that meeting, and he aptly boiled it down to this:

“In the middle of a snowstorm or a windstorm, we coordinate together and get together every year to get to know one another, to who’s on the other end of the phone 2:am. The relationship building is very important to responding collectively to a weather incident or whatever it may be. The more information shared, the better the response.”

That’s what the story was supposed to be about, but what we learned from Russell about the actual mechanics of controlling ice and snow turned out to be the real story.

For instance, we asked him why we don’t see so many cars rusted out from road salt like in the old days. He says for one, cars are made now with more plastics and better under-coatings. But it’s also because the products used on the roads have changed.

“Were using a byproduct from agriculture. It’s beet juice, but it’s called TC&B. It’s a liquid. We spray the liquid on the salt, the salt sticks to the highway because it’s wet. It doesn’t blow off. That way, we can use a lower amount of salt than they used to use, because they used to put straight rock salt out and it used to blow off. So they would put way more than is needed.”

We asked Russell to talk about using sand vs. salt.

“The environmental aspect…scientists did a huge study and sand is more detrimental to the environment, because the sand, when it washes off the road, ruins the salmon spawning beds. The salt is so minute when it runs off that it’s barely even detectable. There’s salt in everything and everywhere. But too much of anything is bad for anything. We use as little as possible to get the best effect as possible. And we’re talking pounds per mile, not like tons…you know, so it’s not as much as people think.”

Russell says the result of better science and techniques in dealing with icy roads can be measured not only in the environment and lower costs, but also in lives saved.

“I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and back then it was straight stand and they were crashes everywhere. Everybody had chains and the freeway or highway used to be just covered with chains after the storm. Black ice used to be a big problem back…way back when, and you couldn’t even see it. It’s why it was called black ice. And people would just spin off the road out of nowhere. Cars in the ditch and all over the place. You don’t see that anymore.”

This year, when the snow and ice hits and you’re safely driving down the road, you can thank science and technology, but most of all, thank a snow truck driver who may have been out all night.

(DOT photo)