A highway road and bridge maintenance company centrally located in 亚洲天堂 Lake is ensuring that the Lakes, Houston and Stikine service areas are safe for the travelling public during the winter months.
Lakes District Maintenance (LDM) maintains more than 3,500 kilometres of the province鈥檚 road network which requires more than 50 plow trucks and 100 employees working year-round. They are committed to safely serving the communities and providing peace of mind to the public by ensuring the safe and efficient movement of people, goods and services.
LDM uses salt brine as one of the tools for winter maintenance, the primary use being for anti-icing. Prior to a forecasted snowfall, they apply the brine to bare highways to prevent the snow and ice from bonding to the road.
Brine is a crystal salt 鈥� sodium chloride 鈥� blended with water, which is a powerful agent that LDM draws upon to stop ice from forming on roads, or to transform existing ice and compact snow into liquid. Adding salt lowers the freezing point of water, almost like magic, according to LDM general manager Cori Funk.
"When the forecast shows a snowstorm is coming, or when the weather is near freezing, or dew or fog could turn into ice, brine is used in a proactive way," he said. "It's distributed as an anti-icing liquid that prevents snow and ice from forming to the road, [and] also softens small accumulations of snow, so that plows can clear the roads to the pavement we all like to drive on."
The mix is created at a brine making facility and is typically about 77 per cent water and 23 per cent salt.
Funk added that this winter has been a strange one weather-wise, as there has been less snow but more rain and thaw-refreeze cycles.
"While we never like to see rain or thaw-refreeze in the winter, it has been a very manageable winter for us so far," he said.
