Environmentalist Insanity in Seattle
Long the natural home to trendy lefty causes, Seattle has embraced a new level of environmentalist insanity by refusing to use salt to melt iced-over roads. The claimed reason is the protection of Puget Sound, though water quality experts insist that there is little chance of this single application of road salt (in response to a truly unusual snow event) damaging that body of water:
If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”…
“The occasional application of salt is probably not going to have a lasting effect” on the environment, Spector said. But she cautioned it’s highly dependent on where it’s used, how often and how much is applied.
The price to Seattle’s citizens of this environmentalist purism is substantial, however:
That leaves many drivers, including Seattle police, pretty much on their own until nature does to the snow what the sand can’t: melt it.
The city’s patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.
And that leaves out the increase in accidents. Seattle’s brilliant plan brings back memories of then-Denver Mayor Federico Pena’s (and later Clinton Transportation Secretary — HA!) bright idea to use city dump trucks to pack down the snow into ice instead of plowing and salting the roads in the early 1990s. The months’ worth of icy ruts gutting the undersides of cars while hurling them uncontrollably around on the roads was…memorable.
Of course, reality is of little interest to environmental purists. Their emotion-based policymaking pays off regardless of whether it does anything good in the real world. They love The Planet!!!
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