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Minnesota Stormwater Manual

Smart Salting (S2) training information
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MPCA Smart Salting Level 1 Certification: Snow and ice control best practices

Audience: Contractors and staff maintaining private/public walkways and/or parking lots, property managers writing contracts, distributors of anti-icing/de-icing products, snowplow drivers— those who make it happen. Anyone else interested in reducing salt use.

Purpose: Through education and outreach, applicators of road salt can learn best practices and significantly reduce their use while maintaining road safety.

Why is it important? This class will help:

  • Save you money.
  • Keep our parking lots and sidewalks safe.
  • Protect our water.
  • Get certified.

Level 1 - Training schedule

Because of the initial success of the pilot project, Fortin Consulting has received a 319 grant to conduct additional training sessions in Minnesota. The following training schedule is changed periodically as training events are completed/added.

Because of the expanded training schedule, we no longer maintain the schedule in the stormwater manual. The training calendar can be accessed here.

  • File:Winter Parking Lot and Sidewalk Maintenance.pdf - (October 2010) - for applicators attending training will be given a clip board containing critical information. The hope is that this clip board will be a useful tool for applicators to keep in there their vehicles during storm events.

MPCA Smart Salting Level 2 Training

Audience: Winter Maintenance Supervisors and Leadership

Purpose:

  • Explore the WMAt with guided instruction
  • Demonstrate how the Winter Maintenance Assessment tool (WMAt) can be used to assist with planning and prioritizing implementation of salt reducing BMPs.
  • Show how the WMAt can help organizations show progress already made and additional opportunities for reducing salt use to improve water quality and potentially save money.
  • Discuss how the WMAt can be used to gain support from the public, local decisions makers, and others to implement salt reducing BMPs.

Smart Salting Level 2 Voluntary Certification

This is an organizational* certification. This means a private or public entity. The organization can include one assessment submittal for the whole organization or multiple submittals for an organization as long as each submittal has a unique address. (i.e. the city of Medina, MNDOT’s Plymouth truck station, Ace Snow Removal west metro branch, or Johnson Lawn and Snow).

To become Smart Salting Level 2 certified an organization must:

  1. Use the WMAt to complete the BMP and Salt Savings assessment s for the most recent fully completed winter maintenance season, for example, if you are filling it out report on Jan. 1, you will have to answer based on the previous season.
  2. Submit the following items to MPCA:
    1. Application sheet for Smart Salting Level II Certification
    2. Summary of BMP Question Responses for Current Report
    3. BMP Question Responses: Summary Charts Report, and
    4. Salt Savings Summary 1 Report.

Reports should include all of the surface type(s) in which you are involved, not a separate report for each surface type.

  1. Submit reports to:
  • Email at andrew.ronchak@state.mn.us
  • Mail to:
    • Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
    • Attn: Andy Ronchak
    • 520 Layfayette Road N
    • St. Paul, MN 55155-4194

It does not matter what the reports say, you can have poor practice, and you may have increased salt use. Becoming Smart Salting Level 2 Certified does not require you or people from your organization to be Level 1 certified, recommended not required. You do not need to attend a Level 2 training to become Level 2 certified.

What will MPCA do for you?

  1. Post your organizations name as being Level 2 certified on the MPCA website
  2. Send you a certification by email to be printed out or by mail

Please note: The organization certification period will be indefinite as long as the organization updates and resubmits the Best Management Practices and Salt Savings reports. We are hoping for a shift in positive practices and salt savings, depending on where you are in your operations this may or may not be possible. You may want to comment on your situation. If you have any salt saving numbers from a change in practice, please share to help make the tool the best it can be.


Level 2 Training schedule

Coming soon.

Additional Winter Maintenance Resources

Calibration

Control point calibration

  1. Load truck and fill sander hopper full with material.
  2. Connect keyboard to Control Point.
  3. Press “F6”on the keyboard to obtain the Calibration Menu Screen.
    1. Press “#1” for Granular Calibration Screen.
    2. Press “#1” for Salt Enabled.
  4. Move spinner out of the way of discharge.
    1. Place buckets under sander.
    2. Truck engine speed to(1800 rpms)
    3. Press “R” on keyboard to start. fill 4 (5 gallon) buckets full to top. Press “S” on keyboard to stop auger. and weigh buckets.
    4. Type in total bucket weight using keyboard (example 232 lbs.)
    5. Press “D” when done.
    6. Press “Y” to confirm new calibration.
  5. Press “F11” to obtain the System Response Calibration Menu.
    1. Bring truck rpm to 1800.
    2. Press 1 for the initial granular system response calibration screen.
    3. Press “R” on the keyboard to start calibration routine and obtain the calibration screen. Wait on calibration for about 1 min.
    4. When the calibration is complete – Press C key to continue.
    5. Press “#4” for Spinner System Response Calibration.
    6. Turn Spinner speed to 100% mark when calibration is done


Open Loop Calibration

  1. OPEN LOOP CALIBRATION (NO REAR CENSOR)
  2. SET DICKEY-JOHN IN MANUAL MODE.
  3. SET AT 400 POUNDS PER LANE MILE.
  4. THE SWITCH MUST BE IN OFF POSITION ACCESS THIS NEXT SCREEN.
    1. EXAMPLE (400: 30)
  5. MAKE SURE HOPPER IS FULL OF MATERIAL.
  6. SWITCH CONTROLLER TO AUTO AND RUN MATERIAL FOR 30 SECONDS.
  7. YOU SHOULD HAVE 100 LBS OF MATERIAL. OR ( 1 ¾ ) 5 GALLON BUCKETS.
  8. GO TO LOCATION 61 AND 68 AND AJUST THE NUMERS UP OR DOWN TO
  9. GET CLOSE TO 100 LBS AT YOUR CATCH TEST.

Note a 5 gallon bucket of salt weighs about 58 pounds.

Explanation. 100 pounds of material or approximately (1 ¾ buckets) of material in 30 seconds.

100 x 4 = 400 lbs per lane mile.


Sample Snow Policies

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