Book Description

Wherever possible, a combination of both structural and non-structural best management practices (BMPs) should be employed to minimize the environmental impacts of winter traction materials. Structural BMPs treat or mitigate highway runoff after it goes off the roadways, and non structural BMPs reduce the amount of traction materials applied on roadways while maintaining winter mobility and public safety. Strategies can be implemented in the domain of technology, management, or both. Strategies may vary, depending on the specific climate, site, and traffic conditions. The crux is selecting an appropriate suite of BMPs that can function most effectively for a given set of conditions. This report focuses on the cold region and rural transportation perspective, and discusses the structural BMPs potentially applicable in Montana in greater detail, including the applicability, site criteria, engineering characteristics, safety concerns, maintenance issues, costs, effectiveness in the presence of snow, and sediment removal efficiency. Despite the challenges of winter conditions, structural BMPs such as ponds, wetlands, and vegetated swales and filter strips, can still remove high levels of sediment from runoff if designed, sited, installed, and maintained properly. This report also summarizes the primary non structural BMPs used to reduce the use and thus minimize the environmental impacts of winter traction materials, including: incorporating environmental staff into construction and maintenance, proper training of maintenance professionals, erosion control, snow fences, snow storage, street sweeping, improved anti icing and deicing practices, improved sanding practices, appropriate application rate, and snowplow technologies. Among these, anti icing strategies, road weather information systems, the Maintenance Decision Support System, and advanced snowplow technologies are highly recommended for use in Montana.