After days of sanding and plowing, North Olympic Peninsula highways tended to be clear on Tuesday, while many county and city roads were still packed with snow and ice.
The major reason? Salt.
The state Department of Transportation uses it, which is why highways tend to be clearer than city or county roads after a snow storm.
“Salt helps a lot,” said Don Heikkila, assistant superintendent at DOT’s Port Angeles facility, which serves both counties, on Tuesday.
“The roads are in pretty good shape right now.”
Road crews in Clallam and Jefferson counties, including all four incorporated cities, cite environmental concerns or the Peninsula’s typically mild winters as the reason they don’t purchase saline solutions to treat roads packed with snow and ice.
Craig Jacobs, Clallam County public works director, said his road crews don’t use salt because of a concern that it would enter streams and ground water.
“We try to do maintenance in a manner that is environmentally sensitive,” he said.
Said Jack Reed, Jefferson County roads operations manager: “We normally don’t have harsh enough winters to need it very much,” “It’s hard to justify that, when the budget is tight anyways.”
Considering a change
But, the unusually snowy weather recently has officials in the Port Angeles and Sequim public works departments saying that they are entertaining the idea of using salt on their streets.
“It is something that we’ve discussed” at the staff level, “but there have been no determinations,” said Erick Whetley, Port Angeles assistant superintendent of streets and parks.
Whetley said corrosion of vehicles caused by salt is a concern, but the main reason the city has yet to use it because there isn’t usually enough snow to make it worthwhile.
The city currently uses a “deicing” liquid on bare roads to prevent them from freezing, he said.
Bill Bullock, Sequim engineer and interim public works director, said using salt on Washington Street and Sequim Avenue could be useful, but doing so may be impractical unless DOT can do the work through an agreement with the city.
“We need to consider how to store it, and what happens if we don’t use it in a year,” he said.
Wait for slush
Without salt, road crews must wait until the packed snow and ice turns to slush in order to remove it completely with snowplows.
Until that occurs, road crews have to settle for creating a hard-packed layer of snow that is drivable during extended periods of freezing temperatures.
“We can’t clear it completely,” said Ross Tyler, Clallam County engineer.
“We keep it pretty good with sand. People can drive around very well.”
But, Tyler said that his crews, armed with sand and snowplows, will always get the job done.
And, road crews in Clallam and Jefferson counties are scheduled to be on the job today, clearing any fresh snow that fell Tuesday night.
Both Tyler and Reed said snowplows will continue to sand the roads and remove any slush and snow until there is nothing left — which includes working on Christmas.
“We will work through the holiday if we have to,” Tyler said. “It’s our job.”
Tyler said Clallam County doesn’t have the resources to run snowplows 24 hours daily, but added that his road crews have worked from 10 hours to 14 hours a day.
He said all of the main roads were plowed by Monday, except those around Clallam Bay.
Tyler said his two snowplow operators in the Clallam Bay area got a late start because they had to dig out their own driveways before they could begin work.
Clallam Bay and Sekiu had accumulated a foot of snow by Sunday.
Tyler said Clallam County has six graders, used for “preleveling” asphalt during the summer, that could clear roads entirely.
But without being able to keep the road surface from freezing, Tyler said it is better to apply sand to a layer of packed snow.
Tyler said Clallam County also uses 18 dump trucks as snowplows.
Forks Mayor Nedra Reed said the city of Forks also doesn’t use salt. Forks Public Works Director Dave Zellar was unavailable for comment.
Jefferson snowplows
In Jefferson County, Reed said snowplows have been on the roads constantly since last week’s snowfall, with road crews working 12-hour shifts.
By the end of the Sunday, all of the “priority routes” in Jefferson County had been plowed after Saturday’s snowfall.
Those routes include main arterials such as Center Road and Paradise Bay Road, he said.
Reed said East Jefferson County operates with eight trucks outfitted with snowplows while the west side has two.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
