You Can Skip The Salt And Scrape Off Sidewalk Ice Monday

MINNEAPOLIS — Salt helps keep roads free from ice and safe for drivers, but did you know it can have the opposite effect on the nearby environment? Its public safety benefits come with environmental drawbacks like polluted waters and poisoned aquatic wildlife.

It is estimated that we toss more than 350,000 tons of salt on the metro area roads annually, according to state officials.

When snow and ice melt, all of this salt goes with it, washing into lakes, streams, rivers, wetlands, and groundwater.

Residents can reduce salt at the source through smart salting application strategies. On Monday, you can simply get ride of ice using a scrapper.

That's because conditions are warming enough where the use of salt isn't necessary, according to the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization:

Temperatures will drop Monday night with lows in the teens below zero across western Minnesota.

"Combined with strong northwest winds, wind chills will bottom out between 25 and 35 below zero Tuesday morning," says the National Weather Service.

Photo by Lanning Taliaferro/Patch