Salt vs. Brine: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
by Eric Leech, New York, NY 
on 11.17.08
Photo by Phil Romans
The magic elixirs of salt and brine are certainly nothing new, they have been used on our roadways for awhile now. Salt is of course used during the winter in certain areas to clear off roads and provide more traction for drivers. Brine on the other hand is derived from gas and oil wells, and is often used to cut down on dust particulates by spreading on gravel/dirt roads.
Put the salt and brine together, and suddenly you have a mixture which is capable of melting snow with much more efficiency and with less salt, and the reason for this is simple.
The Good
Dry salt in frigid temperatures often just lays on top of the snow and blows around. In other words, it takes awhile for it to set to work.However if you wet the salt with a chemical such as brine, it sticks to the roadway better, allowing more of it to do its job without getting blown around.
The brine enhanced salt also enables the mixture to work better in frigid temperatures, because it melts the salt, which then allows heat to be given off quicker, which further speeds the process of melting the snow and ice. Sounds pretty good doesn't it?
So good in fact, that a number of nations are using the mixture, such as Austria, areas around the UK, and some parts of the US. But as there is nothing quite perfect in this world, there is a bad side.
The Bad
While it is claimed that the brine/salt mixture is actually more environmentally friendly, because it allows the road crews to use less salt, there is still the fact that brine itself is a chemical derived from oil and gas and not quite like spreading daisy petals over the asphalt.
Some reports have even gone as far to call brine, hazardous waste (heavy metals, radiation, etc.), which is being legally dumped on our streets and highways. Of course it is tested for caustic materials before it can be dumped, but there is concern that too often reports are not as reliable as we would like to think they are.
The Ugly
To bring up even more ugliness, the brine mixture has also been found by Volkswagen in a recent study to accelerate the corrosion of vehicles. This has already caused multiple vehicle warranty issues in Austria, where the mixture is commonly used.
With the economy the way it is, the motor industry is naturally upset with the thought of multiple issues from customers with premature corrosion-caused suspension and body damage. So the question remains, should the mixture be used for the safety of the driver, or discontinued for the safety of the environment?
More on winter preparation
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Green Your Home for Winter: The Quick List
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Ride Your Bike All Winter: Part 1
Ride your Bike All Winter Part 2
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Since when did they have snow in Australia? How did I miss that?
All these years I thought brine was just salt water. Learn something new every day.
Maybe this is something that got lost in translation when it crossed the pond, but I was under the impression that brine is a saturated solution of sodium chloride in dihydrogen monoxide (table salt in water). So how is this derived from oil? If they are getting it from around oil wells then yes I can see how it might be contaminated but that then begs the question, why get it from oil when most of the world is covered in a slightly more dilute version (you know the big wet thing that surrounds little island nations such as ourselves)?
I agree with George on this: what is this brine of which you write? The only brine I know of is water saturated with salt. Is there another one?
I still can't believe that people are allowed to use salt or brine or what ever else on the roads in such large quantities. All that salt gets washed into the rivers without any filtering. People complain about global warming, human impact on the surrounding, etc, but I have not heard of anyone say that we are poisoning our fresh water with tons and tons of salt. To me this sounds like the biggest injustice we can do to our environment! I have more respect for people driving Hummers than people that use salt that gets washed off into our rivers, lakes, ponds, etc.
Calcium Chloride, which is often added to standard road salt blends, is hygroscopic, which means that it pulls moisture our of the air or from surrounding ice, to begin a solution. This prevents the dusting.
Sometimes salt solutions are made and spread on simply bercause the pumper truck can do it much more efficiently, with fewer gobs and piles left without doing much.
^^^Yeah, what he said. Isn't brine just salty water? On this topic, whatever happened to so-called "greener" ice melting reagents such as magnesium salts? I heard some municipalities were testing those with some success.
The salt situation is pretty bad though. We got sick of re-seeding the grass verge outside our house every summer, so eventually I just dug up all the grass and put down weed-control fabric covered in bark chips, plus a few plants spaced in between. You know something's afoot when there's a dead-zone 1-2ft wide, along the side of a quiet residential street. I'd be a lot happier if they used sand, like in the Adirondacks.
Eric is confused. He has mixed up the use of simple salt water brine to prevent road icing with the use of brine from oil wells (salt water that is separated out of the oil) that is used in areas around the oil wells to control dust on dirt roads.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/team4/5334068/detail.html
@Vadim
You probably don't live in an area that gets snow at any significant rate from the sounds of it. I live in Southern Ontario and in my city I've already got 2inches, with ice underneath. It isn't even December yet and we've already got more snow than a vast majority of the US gets over an entire winter season. While I agree that salt is bad and all what else is to be done? Sand? Doesn't work so well on the ice really. It helps a bit but you can still slide everywhere. I have read about a sugar based solution that was developed in the UK somewhere. But even that had issues.
1. It didn't work well on extreme cold days
2. Animals licked it off the roads
So ya. Don't complain about using the current solution until you've had to drive in areas where snow is higher than the hood of your car on a road you have to drive on.
I'm all for using LESS salt and any other form of road treatments OTHER than sand! If the roads are bad or your vehicle/driving skills aren't good in Winter weather -- STAY OFF THE ROADS!!
There are far too many people driving far too fast for conditions. I see it all the time in PA. Sorry but I had to vent!