By Thia James

New salt storage building to prevent weather-related loss

May 27, 2013 | 12:00 PM

Prince Albert city council may award a tender for its new salt storage building to Norseman Inc. during Monday’s council meeting, which will protect its road salt stock from weather-related loss.

The cost of the tender would be $99,551, but preparations of the site for the new facility will cost about $25,000, bringing the total cost close to the budgeted amount of $125,000.

The storage shelter for the city’s salt stock is needed because it usually receives its new orders in the late fall when it could still rain or snow, the public works department’s operations manager Alain Trudel said. He said the city used to have a salt shed in the old yards before moving to the Prince Albert Municipal Service Centre.

Currently, the road salt sits exposed to the elements.

“But, mostly the salt, if it’s exposed to a … rain event, we lose a lot of our salt content because it just erodes away or melts off,” he said.

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“The other thing [is] once the rain has subsided and it dries, it just hardens into a very large block of salt and is very difficult to work with.”

It’s not just the rain, but the snow events, Trudel said, that the salt needs to be protected from.

“If it’s not cold enough … the salt will start melting some of the snow, and again get the same … bad effect with the salt,” he said.

The salt loss due to the elements can be significant. Trudel said if there’s a lot of rain, we could lose a little more salt.

The effect of the salt being washed away is not just a cost-issue, but it can be environmental as well.

“When it does melt, you have the leachate of the salt, and then it’s sitting on the ground. Of course, it will leach into the ground,” he said.

When the salt is lost to the elements, the city has to replace it. Trudel said how much of the salt has to be replaced is dependent on the weather, how much is exposed and the kind of winter the city is having.

“If we get a nice fall with no rain and the frost comes down and hardly any snow then [we] don’t have a whole bunch of effects. But as you know, we’ve had some pretty wet few years here and it does play havoc on that.”

He said once the city does mix the salt with the sand in preparation for the winter, it’s the same thing. The sand pile is also exposed to the elements and the salt leaches out of the sand/salt mix and makes it less effective.

“By which then you have to put down more of it or add more salt when you go to put it down on the street.”

In the fall, the city mixes about 3,000 tonnes of sand/salt mixture. Trudel said this amount usually lasts through the whole winter – with the exception of this past winter.

He said they use about 300 tonnes of salt to use in that first mix (10 per cent of the mix). Throughout the winter, they may use more salt – in straight on-the-ground applications. In a typical winter, the city may use 300-500 tonnes of salt.

The storage building will be a 50-by-70 foot tarpaulin shelter with a concrete block foundation.

A report written by the city’s manager of capital projects, Wes Hicks, recommends the city awards the tender to Norseman Inc. to supply the shelter.

“Award of this contract will allow the City to make larger bulk purchases of salt…” Hicks wrote.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames