How one Midwestern community avoids road salt all winter

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chicago — like so many other frigid American cities — can’t seem to kick its dependence on road salt. Last episode, we talked about why chloride from salt is harmful to both our natural and built environments. So we spent some time looking around for a cold-weather community that avoids using it altogether. And we found one! A little community way up north: Have you ever taken a ferry — or a plane — to Mackinac Island? Today, we hear from Dominick Miller, chief of marketing at the Mackinac State Historic Parks, about how the island deals with snow and ice in the winter without laying down a single grain of salt. And it has a lot to do with the fact that cars have been banned on Mackinac Island for over a century.

Transcript

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1:01.3	Chicago, like so many other frigid American cities, has an addiction to road salt.
1:09.3	We use it to stop ice from slicking up the roads and to stop you from crashing your car.
1:16.5	But as we learned last episode, chloride from salt is corrosive.
1:21.2	It hurts wildlife and contaminates waterways in the environment.
	...

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