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A Sand and Salt Shortage in RI...

Tin

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Oct 14, 2009
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Despite having 384 miles of coastline we must have a shortage. My street and most others in Providence..

.Sixth Street Pond....jpg
 

ctenidae

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Local environmental fundraiser guy was in our neighborhood last night. I can't help myself with them sometimes. Their current campaign is to get pesticides banned on school athletic fields. A sufficiently worthy cause, since I thought that had been done already.

I asked him what their next campaign is going to be, and he said they are going to try to ban frac fluids in Connecticut. I gave him a quizzical look and commented that there's really no fracking in CT, since there's no shale gas, and the geology's not much good for disposal wells. He said they're talking about using old frac fluids on the roads as a de-icer, which I thought was a pretty brilliant idea. He started to launch into an ill-rehearsed bit on the dangers and evils of frac fluids, since they are, clearly of the devil. I asked him if he knew what is in frac fluids, and he said "Really bad stuff, lots of chemicals." I gave him the 30 second education on the fluids (99.9% water and sand, 0.1% really horrible stuff like guar gum (in most food products), lauryl sulfate (in shampoo), methanol (wood alcohol in Uncle Jessie's moonshine), and other really terrible things. Benzine and petroleum distillates, and other icky stuff is both mostly phased out, and generally everything that's not sand and water represents less than 30 gallons of a typical 3.5 million gallon frac job. I gently suggested that he make sure they really know what they're talking about before they knee jerk this one.

Seems like the high-salinity sandy water would be a pretty good road de-icer, and really cause no different runoff than spreading salt and sand do now.
 

Puck it

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Franconia, NH
Local environmental fundraiser guy was in our neighborhood last night. I can't help myself with them sometimes. Their current campaign is to get pesticides banned on school athletic fields. A sufficiently worthy cause, since I thought that had been done already.

I asked him what their next campaign is going to be, and he said they are going to try to ban frac fluids in Connecticut. I gave him a quizzical look and commented that there's really no fracking in CT, since there's no shale gas, and the geology's not much good for disposal wells. He said they're talking about using old frac fluids on the roads as a de-icer, which I thought was a pretty brilliant idea. He started to launch into an ill-rehearsed bit on the dangers and evils of frac fluids, since they are, clearly of the devil. I asked him if he knew what is in frac fluids, and he said "Really bad stuff, lots of chemicals." I gave him the 30 second education on the fluids (99.9% water and sand, 0.1% really horrible stuff like guar gum (in most food products), lauryl sulfate (in shampoo), methanol (wood alcohol in Uncle Jessie's moonshine), and other really terrible things. Benzine and petroleum distillates, and other icky stuff is both mostly phased out, and generally everything that's not sand and water represents less than 30 gallons of a typical 3.5 million gallon frac job. I gently suggested that he make sure they really know what they're talking about before they knee jerk this one.

Seems like the high-salinity sandy water would be a pretty good road de-icer, and really cause no different runoff than spreading salt and sand do now.

Sounds like a "Zoolander" evironmentalist!!!!


But it is really really really bad fluid!!!!
 
Last edited:

Abubob

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Apr 9, 2010
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Alexandria, NH
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Despite having 384 miles of coastline we must have a shortage.

New Hampshire bought it all. From December to March NH goes from being the Granite State to the Salt State. It could be 10ºF and the roads as still wet.
 

Nick

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Bradenton, FL
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This was a tough one for icy conditions. The heavy snow melted and then froze again making for some thick ice. YOu'd need a lot of salt to clear that. I have some patches in my driveway that are over an inch thick of ice.
 
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