Some Michigan officials are trading in salt and using beet juice to make roads less slippery during the winter season.
According to an NBC affiliate in Lansing, WILX, environmentalists are working to find ways to reduce the impact of salt spread on roads in Michigan from December through March.
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“We know that our road agencies have been focused on reducing their application rates, but we also know that MDOT applied 523,000 tons of salt last year on our trunk lines,” Christie Alwin of the Michigan Department of Environment Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) told WILX.
MDOT has been using beet juice in Delta Township as a de-icer on Saginaw Highway to cut back on using salt.
Another member of EGLE told WILX that using too much salt isn’t suitable for infrastructure.
“It also affects our infrastructure, such as bridges actually costing taxpayers quite a bit of money to rebuild and maintain things that have been corroded by salt,” said Megan Tinsley.