Winter forecast calls for a drop in road salt on town streets

Oct. 7, 2023  |  By Lisa Scagliotti 

A snow plow clears South Main Street. The new no-salt policy would apply to less-traveled roads around town. Photo by Gordon Miller

The Waterbury Select Board on Monday approved a new trial policy to skip using road salt on some town streets this winter. 

The board unanimously approved the new approach that will apply to 17 streets, many of them being dead-end and neighborhood streets. The list was reviewed and proposed by Public Works Director Bill Woodruff and town Highway Supervisor Celia Clark. 

The Select Board for several years has discussed cutting back on costly road salt which also leads to contamination in local streams, the Winooski River, and ultimately Lake Champlain. 

“This list is generally based on the posted speed limits of the roads, elevation and direction changes, and our desire to reduce salt usage without impacting public safety,” Municipal Manager Tom Leitz explained in a memo to the board. 

The 3 miles of roadways listed represent 12% of the town’s 25 miles of paved roads. Leitz noted that the price of salt has increased from $82 to $90 per ton, which will negate any savings from cutting back on the number of roads that will be salted. 

The motivation for the move is mainly for environmental reasons, he said. “There’s not a single nickel saved.” 

Roads chosen for the policy have low speed limits and are generally flat. The board discussed adding signs this winter to alert drivers to the policy to increase awareness and caution. They also adopted the policy calling it a trial policy for the 2023-24 winter. Leitz said he would research whether there would be data collected by environmental organizations to help determine whether the reduced salt use has any measurable impact on local waterways.

Town officials also acknowledge that eliminating salt will impact winter road conditions on the affected streets. “The most significant will be that we will be unable to completely clear the snow from these roads, and over time we can expect the surface to become a hard-packed layer of snow,” Leitz explained. 

In such cases, road crews would use sand to improve traction, but they would not work to scrape packed snow. 

One caveat in the approach is that should there be storms that result in “a significant layer of ice,” road crews would be allowed to use salt to ensure safe travel conditions. 

The streets on the no-salt list for this winter are mostly in the downtown area with three in Waterbury Center and two on the west end of town off of U.S. Route 2. The streets are: 

Prospect Street 

Intervale Avenue 

Wallace Avenue 

Butler Street 

Adams Court 

Swasey Court 

Armory Avenue 

Huntington Place 

O'Hear Court 

Batchelder Street 

Healy Court

River Road

Little River Road

Jenny Davis Road 

Metayer Court 

Lakeview Terrace 

Sunset Drive