198

Road salt on the city’s bridges raised the river’s chlorine levels, making the water more corrosive. This has continued into the present and may have been one reason poorly-treated Flint River water was so damaging to metal pipes.

I shared this because my city doesn't use rock salt during winter, and its pretty inconvenient as a driver. So I was surprised to learn why.

It's disingenuous to say it's the PRIMARY contributor, but it is a factor!

all 30 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ME5SENGER_24@lemm.ee 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Same thing caused the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse* in Minneapolis. Take cues from the Norwegians and Swedes; crushed rock for traction, spiked tires for traction and no chemical salt to fuck up your land and waterways.

Snow was here before humans and will continue long after we exterminate ourselves from the planet. Learn to live with it and stop fighting nature.

Edit: a word*

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 20 points 1 year ago

It also rusts the shit out of cars which is why 3 year old cars from the midwest resemble 30 year old cars from the west coast. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated all the lost capital caused by salting roads. I bet it's insanely high with the infrastructure and property damage alone.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I was stunned moving to Chicago from Tulsa! Back home we only use sand, which is annoying as hell as it doesn't go away as easily.

But damn, cars rusted out overnight. The crappy minivan I drove down to Florida had to be trashed within 2-months of arriving. Undercarriage so rotten it wasn't sane to repair the brakes. And that was after a fuel line popped a week before!

Wondered why I didn't see many old cars in Chicagoland.

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

This would require people in America to learn how to drive in the snow (or just stay the fuck at home if they won't learn) and we won't have that. I instead, if I lead-foot myself into a telephone pole in the snow I'll sue!!!!!

[-] plantsmakemehappy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Source for the claim about the I-35W bridge?

[-] LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[-] plantsmakemehappy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Except that reference isn't about I-35W, it's about the Lake County Grand River Bridges.

ETA: Page xiii

_The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the inadequate load capacity, due to a design error by Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates, Inc., of the gusset plates at the U10 nodes, which failed under a combination of (1) substantial increases in the weight of the bridge, which resulted from previous bridge modifications, and (2) the traffic and concentrated construction loads on the bridge on the day of the collapse. Contributing to the design error was the failure of Sverdrup & Parcel’s quality control procedures to ensure that the appropriate main truss gusset plate calculations were performed for the I-35W bridge and the inadequate design review by Federal and State transportation officials. Contributing to the accident was the generally accepted practice among Federal and State transportation officials of giving inadequate attention to gusset plates during inspections for conditions of distortion, such as bowing, and of excluding gusset plates in load rating analyses.

Before determining that the collapse of the I-35W bridge initiated with failure of the gusset plates at the U10 nodes, the Safety Board considered a number of potential explanations. The following factors were considered, but excluded, as being causal to the collapse: corrosion damage in gusset plates at the L11 nodes, fracture of a floor truss, preexisting cracking, temperature effects, and pier movement._

[-] LilB0kChoy@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Good thing you read more of it than I did. I just searched the document for the word “salt”!

I was surprised to hear the claim too. I thought I had read years ago that it was metal fatigue at the welds. Akin to a paper clip being bent to many times some of the welds fatigued to failure due to years of flexing.

[-] Jode@midwest.social 29 points 1 year ago

The DOT around my area has started using cheese brine to pre treat the roads and it has been doing a pretty decent job.

[-] bigredgiraffe@lemmy.world 31 points 1 year ago

Do you live in WI? I am from there and that sounds like the most Wisconsin sentence ever haha!

[-] Geek_King@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago

Being in Wisconsin as well, I always wonder how the environment copes with crazy amount of salt that gets used on the roads during bad winters. We've had winters where they ran out of salt and started using sand.

[-] Montagge@kbin.social 30 points 1 year ago

Salting the roads is just another stupid thing we do to destroy everything around us

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2018/12/11/road-salt-harms-environment/

[-] Drusas@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Long but great read. Thanks for sharing.

[-] hglman@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 year ago

One more reason to not have cars.

[-] BassTurd@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Do you just bike and walk in ice all winter?

[-] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

"JuSt TaKe PuBlIc TrAnSiT!"

Oh wait, they shut that down in my state the instant the first flurry hits the ground. "For safety."

[-] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

If cities were designed to use public transport first, you wouldn't be making fun of it. It's not our fault cities suck at managing transportation.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

What if I don't live in a city and do not wish to?

[-] hglman@lemmy.ml -4 points 1 year ago

Then accept that you don't have on demand access to everything.

[-] Blackout@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Sled dogs and x-country skis

[-] onion@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

You think it doesn't snow in Scandinavia?

[-] fireweed@lemmy.world -2 points 1 year ago

Not op, but yes? Like people have been doing since homo erectus first migrated to snowy places?

[-] CaptainPedantic@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Last I checked, Homo erectus didn't spend a lot of time walking around on concrete. Nor did they have bicycles.

No matter the mode of transportation, in a built up environment where you're moving on smooth surfaces where ice can form easily, you need some form of de-icing, sanding, and/or studded tires/shoes.

this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
198 points (98.5% liked)

Today I Learned

17823 readers
5 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS