The city of Parsons could begin pre-treating streets prior to winter storms instead of just reacting to the slick mess that follows.
On Monday evening, city commissioners gave permission to the city staff to spend up to $35,000 on two trucks with brine tanks.
All of the public works employees attended a snow removal seminar in Burlington recently in which among other things the Kansas Department of Transportation described how the highways are treated with brine before storms. Brine, which is a mixture of salt and water, lessens the ability of ice and snow to adhere to roads, making it much easier to scrape them clean after ice or snowfall.
City staff later went to the KDOT office in Chanute to look into buying a couple of used dump trucks. While those trucks weren’t what was needed, they did find two trucks used for snow and ice removal.
City Manager Debbie Lamb said the trucks are 2002 or 2003 models with low mileage. KDOT planned to sell them on Purple Wave, an online auction site specializing in government vehicles and equipment. The vehicles would bring about $40,000 on Purple Wave, Lamb said, but KDOT is willing to sell them for about $30,000 if the city commits to them beforehand.
(Read more: Parsons Sun)