The Village of Jeffersonville donated brine equipment to the Fayette County Engineer’s Office, which recently upgraded one of its trucks to accommodate the usage of the brine system for this winter.
Submitted photo
WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE — The Fayette County Engineer’s Office has a new tool in the toolbox to battle snow and ice this season.
The engineer’s office has selected Prairie and Bloomingburg New Holland roads to be the first to distribute brine.
“The local ODOT garage referred us to the Village of Jeffersonville in hopes of acquiring an old brine system that was left at the previous Jeffersonville ODOT garage,” said Fayette County Engineer Steve Luebbe. “The Village of Jeffersonville Council generously donated the brine equipment to Fayette County, in which we recently upgraded one of our trucks to accommodate the usage of the brine system for this winter.”
Brine is a mixture of salt and water. It is commonly used in anti-icing operations and for pre-wetting solid rock salt.
The county plans on using it by pre-wetting the salt at the auger. Major benefits of prewetting with salt brine are it enables the salt to “get to work” faster and keeps more of the salt on the road, which in itself, is a major factor in keeping the snow and ice from bonding to the roadway.
Dry salt can “bounce” off the roadway and end up in the ditch, according to Luebbe.
“The key to effective snow and ice control is to place and maintain the treatment on the roadway, so it can begin doing its job of keeping the snow and ice from attaching to the roadway and causing hazardous road conditions this winter,” he said.
