This is in response to a letter in the Mountain Express that ran Dec. 13, 2006: "Do we need salted roads?"
I have been a resident of Blaine County for 46 years, and I have been driving in snow all my life.
Salt is working well around Lake Tahoe, Calif. Roads are free of snow, and mature trees are dying up to 50 feet from the roadway. Studies have been conducted, and the dying of trees and the pollution of creeks has been attributed to the salt. However, no alterna-tive to salt has been found. Roads continue to be salted.
Roads in the Alps have been salted for decades. Where buildings are close to the roads, stucco is being eaten away and falling off. The lower parts of buildings facing the roads, shrubs and hedges close to the roads, are covered with plastic tarps in the winter to protect them from salt. Roads continue to be salted.
Car washes in snow country are doing a great business. The water from car washes cannot go into the sewer because of contamination. It has to be re-cycled.
A minority of people are be-ing accommodated in Blaine County, people who drive with tires that barely have enough threads on them to make them safe for summer driving. Any-one who is involved in an acci-dent without the proper tires should be cited for operating an unsafe vehicle.
Let's put sand back on the roads to save the environment and our cars.
A suggestion to newcomers and others not used to winter driving: four snow tires with studs mounted on inexpensive rims. The wheels can be changed in no time, and the cost is less than a small fender bender.
Hans Hub
Ketchum
