Sugar beets to fight road ice (1/25/05)

Sugar beets are being added to the arsenal of the Jay County Highway Department for fighting winter weather.

Jay County Commissioners, after talking with county highway superintendent Ken Wellman and a representative of Road Solutions Inc., agreed to treat the county’s remaining salt stock with De-Ice 55 — a liquid product made from sugar beets.

The company claims the product works at a lower temperature, scatters less and lasts longer than the plain salt/sand mix currently used in Jay County. It will also melt through hard-pack snow and ice.

“It’s science. It’s not salesmanship, it’s not B.S.,” Rod Waltman, director of operations for the Indianapolis-based company, told Commissioners Faron Parr, Gary Theurer and Milo Miller Jr.

Although the company doesn’t guarantee it, Waltman said the overall cost for salt/sand application could decrease because less can be used. Waltman also said the product is all natural and bio-degradable.

Wellman, who has been highway superintendent for about a year, said that over the past few years an average of 750 tons (1.5 million pounds) of salt/sand mix have been used on county roads. Except for a few key, highly-traveled roads, most of the application is at intersections, hills and curves, Wellman said.

There are approximately 150 tons left in the county’s salt barn, and the commissioners agreed to have that salt treated with approximately 900 gallons of the De-Ice 55 product. At a cost off $3.25 per gallon, the treatment will cost about $3,000.

Waltman said he will provide training for the county’s salt truck drivers — including instructing them to reduce the application rate and the frequency of application.

“If they go out and use this the same old way, you’re gonna love the results,” Waltman said. “But you can’t afford it.”

Waltman said that the product, which can be used in its liquid form as an ice preventative, actually bonds to the road surface and that it will work even after a road is plowed.

“I wanna see that,” Theurer said.

Also Monday afternoon, Wellman told the commissioners that the work to clear tree limbs and brush from along the rights-of-way of county roads is continuing.

It is a process, he said, which could stretch well into the summer months and which could require the hiring of additional part-time labor once chip-and-sealing and paving begins.

Wellman said he plans to tell his workers to pick up all limbs along the road — even those piled near the road by residents in rural areas.

“As long as it’s in our right-of-way, we’ll probably pick it up,” Wellman said.

Last week in Delaware County, the commissioners rescinded an earlier decision to pick up storm debris for all county residents.

Efforts are being made to establish drop-off sites for the brush in all six incorporated cities and towns in Jay County. The Jay County Solid Waste District (see related story on this page) plans to rent a grinder that will be used to convert the brush into mulch.

The commissioners received some good news — in the form of a lower premium — from their agent for worker’s compensation.

Bob Brown, of Barnum-Brown Insurance Agency, Dunkirk, told the commissioners the premium for the insurance for work-related incidents will decrease to $104,233, down from about $107,000 last year.

The decrease was the result of better claims experience over the preceding three years.

With no major claims this year, the county could see another decrease in 2006, Brown said.[[In-content Ad]]