NAMPA, Idaho — Nampa road crews will continue to pre-treat and prepare roads for the expected overnight snowfall
- Tens of thousands of gallons of salt brine have already been used this season
- The salt brine is prepared in-house using just water and regular road salt
- Neighborhoods should not be expected to be plowed this time, contracted plowing occurs when at least 6 inches have accumulated in 24 hours
- A map showing the contracted snow plow areas can be found here
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Nampa has seen 16 inches of snow since January 8 and in that time, the Nampa Streets Division has used 17,493 gallons of brine, 938 yards of salt, 275 yards of sand, and just under 1,000 man-hours.
"It is not typical at all, it's a lot," says Steve Overweg, heavy equipment supervisor with the city's Street Division.
Crews have been on 12-hour shifts since January 11th and will continue that schedule through Thursday. Steve told me he put in over 80 hours last week.
"So our salt pile was probably, I dunno, 70% bigger than this before this event," Overweg continued.
A majority of that salt was used from Friday morning to Sunday morning.
Nampa residents can expect the same level of pre-treatment and street plowing but what they shouldn't be expecting is their neighborhood to be plowed.
"Once we hit over 6 inches of snowfall in a 24-hour period we then hire contractors to go through the residential areas," explained Overweg.
Chief Meteorologist Scott Dorval told me that Nampa is expecting to see around 4 inches.
The Streets Division cooks their own road brine comprised of just regular road salt and water, heated and dissolved to a salinity level of 23.32%. Seawater has a salinity of 3.5%. If the road brine is half a percentage high or low it will freeze on the road, making already slick conditions worse.
The container cooks 650 gallons at a time with a salt truck packing 3,000.
To date, crews have used nearly 69,000 gallons of their road brine.
Nampa crews can pre-treat when the air temperature is above 15º, any lower than that, the the brine will freeze on the road.
