Since the mid 1970's, the County of Wellington has been using liquid products to help in our fight against snow and ice on County roads. Our liquid of choice, until 1996, was Calcium Chloride a product readily available summer (dust suppressant) and winter (added to our sand and salt.) In 1996, we switched to Magnesium Chloride, but not by itself. Instead, a liquid made from steeping corn was added. The result was a de-icer (Freeze Point Depressant) that was environmentally friendly, less corrosive than salt or calcium chloride and had a freezing point of -35°C. Since that time, we have experimented with many liquids derived from agricultural products, such as grains and sugar beets. In the last 2 years, we have concentrated our program on only one liquid, that is "Caliber."

What is Caliber? Well, in its pure form, it is 100% corn. Engineered, refined, food grade, corn, made in a Wet Milling Process. It is delivered to us, blended with Magnesium Chloride, as a product called Caliber Ml000 and Caliber M2000. M1000 is 70% less corrosive than salt, has a ph of 6-8, and passed the purity tests set out by the PNS (an environmental test based on the Canadian Drinking Water standards for all liquid de-icers.) M2000 is l/10th   as corrosive as salt, has a ph of 6-8 and also meets the purity tests of the PNS. Caliber M1000 contains a higher percentage of Magnesium Chloride and is used for pre-wetting and direct application. Caliber M2000 contains a lesser percentage of Magnesium Chloride and a higher percentage of Caliber, and is used in pre-treating stockpiles of sand and/or salt. Both products have a freezing point of -65°C and are environmentally friendly.

What Is Pre-treating, Pre-wetting and Direct Application?

Pre-treating, in our case, is mixing a liquid de-icer (M2000) into sand and/or salt (16 litres/ton sand and 30 litres/ton salt), with a pugmill and stockpiling the resulting mixture in our domes. The following pictures show a typical pre-treat operation for salt. You will notice our salt is blue. We purposely add a food grade colorant to the M2000 prior to mixing to show that the salt is thoroughly mixed and to give a visual sign to the motoring public that we are using something different. This pre-treated salt melts ice and snow faster, has a freezing point of -30°C, and we use approximately 25% less of it to get the same results as using regular salt.

Pre-wetting is applying a liquid de-icer (M1000) to our sand/salt as it comes off our trucks, just before it hits the road. The County has a fleet of 26 Sander/Plows of which 24 have liquid storage tanks and spray nozzles, which can add liquid de-icer (Ml000) to the sand and salt on demand. Of these 24 trucks, 14 are what we call 3 in 1 units as seen in Picture 1.

Direct application is just what it says, applying material, in this case M1000, directly onto the road. Why would we apply liquid directly onto the road? The M1000 has such a low freezing point it is possible for us to spray the road ahead of snowfall to prevent that snow from bonding to the road surface. This is called anti-icing. In reality you are not, anti-icing (preventing ice from forming on the road) but rather you are anti-bonding snow or ice. The M1000 acts like a non-stick cooking oil that sprayed on a cast iron fry pan prevents eggs from sticking to it. While the truck shown above has limited anti-icing ability because of its small storage tank, we have one truck with a 8,000 litre tank dedicated to anti-icing, and a second one being built for the next season. This truck is equipped with a spray bar that can spray 3 lanes at once, or individual lanes as required. It also has a front one-way plow and wing to do double duty as a snow plow.

In the 2002-2003 winter season we used nearly 750,000 litres of M1000 and M2000. This past winter we used approximately 1 million litres. We are currently enlarging our liquid storage capacity from 110,000 litres to 350,000 litres to help accommodate our annual needs.