By ERICA ESTEP
6 News Reporter
WARTBURG (WATE) - Snow and ice kept Morgan County Road crews busy Tuesday, and forced officials to call off school.
Even well after lunch, there were still county roads covered with snow and ice.
County road crews are working on a new way to treat roads in cold weather. They hope the new plan will help Morgan County save thousands of dollars a year.
Highway Superintendent Roy Smith said Tuesday was the first test of liquid salt with positive results. "We're surprised. I didn't think it would work this fast, and I didn't think that it would go as far as it's going."
Smith says the new liquid salt experiment was inspired by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, which uses a similar mixture to treat state roads.
Morgan County crews have only used a mixture of salt and gravel to treat snow and ice covered roads, until now.
"We would normally use around 5 or 6 tons of salt to get the road in as good a shape as it is. We've used 500 gallons of the liquid agent," Smith explained, pointing out a section of Gobey Road that was used as a test.
Three miles of the road was treated with the liquid melting agent and was clear just a couple hours later. The rest remained snow covered most of the day.
Smith says crews used only a 1/2 ton of salt in the test strip mixture, instead of 5 or 6 tons. With salt currently $78 a ton, that's more than $400 in savings.
"What we've got right now is kind of homemade," explained Smith. "We'll hope to make some improvements to that if it works as good as it looks like it's going to right now."
Morgan County has 538 miles of roads to maintain, and some of the secondary roads aren't treated.
That's something Smith hopes to change. He thinks the switch to liquid salt could help. "If it works as well as we think it's going to, it's going to save a lot of money. We're going to be able to service a lot more roads and a lot more people than we have been able to get to before."
Smith adds that the money saved could be spent elsewhere too, like paving more asphalt roads.
The consistency of the new mixture also allows more flexibility because it can be put down well ahead of a storm, during daylight hours when it's safer. That would cut down on overtime costs.
The Morgan County Highway Department is still working on the best, most cost effective formula. Officials hope to eventually use only liquid salt, but will continue to use both methods this winter.
Tuesday was the first test of liquid salt with positive results.
Three miles of Gobey Road was treated with the liquid melting agent and was clear just a couple hours later.
