To Woodrow Township residents

   To all of the residence in Woodrow Town ship who live on, or near or use gravel roads.

  For many years, I have tried to convince the Woodrow Township Council to use the dust suppressant “Calcium Chloride” to suppress unhealthy road dust for township citizens. 

   All of the technical information provided in this document was extracted from the project report provided by the ‘Minnesota Department of Transportation Research Services office of Policy Analysis, Research and Innovation. The title of the report is “Aggregate Roads Dust Control A Brief Synthesis of Current Practices”. Primary Author: Michael Marti, PE SRF

   Research Project completed June 2013, Final Report # 2013RIC6.7

   Over the past 7-9 years, the Woodrow Township has managed to use all kinds of environmental excuses not to use dust suppressant at all. Those excuses include:

   1.  It will rust out cars... 

   2.  It will pollute lakes and streams....

   3.  It will harm animals that walk on roads treated with Calcium Chloride.

   4.  It is harmful to plants and animals

   None of these reasons are factual! The Minnesota State Highway Department in conjunction with the “Rural Road Research Board” and the “University of Minnesota engineering Project team” have determined that Calcium Chloride is a safe and effective tool to suppress road dust. Calcium Chloride has been recommended by the State of Minnesota as a safe and effective treatment to suppress road dust. Calcium Chloride has been classified as a nutrient. Calcium Chloride has been used by Cass County and state wide counties to suppress dust on gravel roads successfully for many years. The Minnesota “Rural Road Research Board” used 41 test sites, over 13 years ago, to prove Calcium Chloride is a safe, effective and economical product to use. Calcium Chloride is being used by hundreds of counties  and townships country wide with great success. AND, using Calcium Chloride to suppress dust reduces the need for plowing by an estimated 50 % and the need to “Re-Graveling” by up to 75%, saving the township money.

   In 2013 the Project team presented their research results to the public.

    I have given those project results to Woodrow Township on several occasions and they have totally ignored project results! A copy of the project results can be found on line.

    The “Department of Transportation Research Services, Office of Policy Analysis, Research & Innovation” sponsored the Dust Suppressant project.

   The Minnesota “Rural Road Research Board”, The University of Minnesota Project Team and the Minnesota Highway Department have identified road dust as the following:

     1.  Road dust has been identified as a safety hazard by temporally blinding drivers who could hit other drivers, animals or pedestrians...

   2.  Road dust pollutes lakes, streams and harms plants, animals and most importantly humans.

   3.  Road dust is harmful to people can cause lung illness from breathing dust in.

   4.  A negative impact on the quality of life for people who live on or near or simply use gravel roads...  

   5.  Dust suppressants are currently paid for by county residents via their property, taxes yet Woodrow Township refuses to use it. I contacted Cass County and learned that dust suppressant costs are already included in our property tax bill as a percentage.

   6.  Now the Woodrow Township Council has recently decided that they would follow the standard established by Cass County that they use to determine if dust suppressant will be used. The County standard is, “a gravel road must have at least 200 cars per day to justify the use of dust suppressant”. I don’t know, but I don’t think any township road has that kind of traffic. The adoption of this standard makes no sense!!

   7. Isn’t it an established precedent that we elect public officials to put our safety, health and wellbeing at the top of their administrative agenda???

   8. I am also concerned about how the Woodrow Township Council is treating this issue. Using dust suppressant on our gravel roads has only positive benefits, yet they have chosen a very negative posture relative to the benefits of Calcium Chloride. Again, their position regarding this issue does not make sense.

Sincerely:

Jack Melby

Woodrow Township