Transcript · Wright County, Minnesota
Wright County, MinnesotaTranscriptWednesday, January 7, 2026
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[0:44] [music]
[0:48] Hello.
[0:51] Heat.
[1:08] Okay, with the winter snow season upon
[1:10] us again, uh, one of the ways that Ray
[1:12] County is battling the snow and ice on
[1:16] our highways is obviously through our
[1:19] plow trucks with salt, but we also have
[1:22] invested in a brine system which will
[1:26] allow us to be more cost effective and
[1:28] efficient in our snow and ice control
[1:30] methods. So
[1:33] we've invested in uh a brine making
[1:35] system here and our brine making system
[1:38] basically works like this. You put a
[1:41] bucket of solar salt in a hopper. Water
[1:44] is introduced into that hopper and
[1:47] circulates. Once that water reaches a
[1:51] desired salinity of salt, it is
[1:54] transferred into this holding tank. And
[1:58] this holding tank will recirculate that
[2:01] salt brine and it will allow you to find
[2:05] the optimum level of salt brine to um
[2:10] fight snow and ice with. And that level
[2:14] is 23.3%.
[2:16] Um, so if we're running a little high, a
[2:18] little too saturated, we have a water
[2:21] filtration or a water system will
[2:23] introduce fresh water into the system
[2:25] and that will allow us to be in a
[2:28] desired range. Once we meet that desired
[2:31] range, that salt brine will be
[2:34] transferred from this hopper through
[2:36] this cabinet, which will read and ensure
[2:39] that you are in your target salinity
[2:41] levels. Once that is reached, it'll be
[2:44] transferred to one of these uh 6900galon
[2:49] holding tanks. And there is three
[2:52] holding tanks here with straight salt
[2:54] brine and two holding tanks which have a
[2:59] calcium chloride premium liquid deicer
[3:02] in them. What this does is it gives the
[3:05] drivers the ability to utilize
[3:08] temperature. The warmer it is, the less
[3:11] premium deicer you need, the more
[3:14] efficient salt brine works. Salt brine
[3:16] is by far the cheapest product we can
[3:19] produce to fight snow and ice with. And
[3:24] um so then we also have the ability when
[3:26] it gets colder though to introduce our
[3:28] premium deicer at a desired percentage.
[3:32] So it could be 80% salt brine, 20%
[3:35] premium, 7030. And that'll allow you to
[3:39] get down to the below zero temperatures
[3:41] and effectively remove um ice and snow
[3:45] from roadways.
[3:49] [music]
[4:21] >> [music]
[4:27] [music]
[4:41] >> Okay. So, another tool for snow and ice
[4:43] control is uh I'm standing in front of
[4:45] our tanker here. We use this tanker. Our
[4:48] tanker 6,000 gallons and we use this
[4:51] throughout the year. Um, but during snow
[4:53] and ice control season, we use it for
[4:56] transferring the brine from the brine
[4:58] facility to our satellite shops. And so
[5:02] we'll take a load of deicer and we will
[5:05] take it to our out shop and put it in
[5:08] one of those same style white tanks,
[5:11] 6900gallon tanks, um, at the out shops.
[5:14] So then we can transfer the same product
[5:17] that we can make here efficiently
[5:20] out to our out shop so they can utilize
[5:22] it in all corners of the county. Um the
[5:26] tanker itself is an old milk tanker that
[5:28] we bought used. Uh we install baffles in
[5:31] it to keep the product from slloshing uh
[5:34] make it a little safer to use going down
[5:36] the road. And what we do is we uh we
[5:40] would back up to the brine facility much
[5:43] in the same uh manner that we do with
[5:47] the trucks. And we will hook up uh the
[5:50] hose and the banjo fitting
[5:53] from the brine facility into the back of
[5:56] the tanker.
[5:58] And then you can pump directly into
[6:02] the uh the tanker.
[6:06] see exactly how we got this thing here.
[6:11] So, the guys will come in, we'll pull
[6:13] this cap off, we'll we have a
[6:14] connection, we'll hook up to here, and
[6:16] then we'll pump uh, you know, up to
[6:18] 6,000 gallons in there. And then when
[6:20] they get to the out shop, they will just
[6:22] come up. They'll hook up um right out of
[6:25] this outlet pump and pump that uh onto
[6:29] or into the standalone um dual wall
[6:32] tanks at our out shops. One other thing
[6:35] we use this for is anti-icing. We It's
[6:38] got the spray bar set up on it now, but
[6:40] we'll fill this prior to a storm and go
[6:43] out on selected routes, areas the wind
[6:45] doesn't blow too much, and we will uh
[6:48] pre-treat roadways with it. And all we
[6:50] did for that is we took an old piece or
[6:53] some PVC and drilled holes in the bottom
[6:55] of it. And we've got a onoff valve
[6:58] that's controlled in the cab. And the
[7:00] driver will drive selector routes and uh
[7:03] pre-treat the uh roadway prior to the
[7:06] storm to keep the hopefully the the
[7:09] theory behind that is to keep the snow
[7:11] and ice from sticking on the roadway and
[7:13] it'll allow it to peel off easier. Uh
[7:16] the method behind it is always they talk
[7:18] like a pan that you fry your food in.
[7:21] You know, you put butter or pam in there
[7:23] and then it doesn't stick. So, it's the
[7:25] same theory uh with snow and ice
[7:27] control.