Keeping roadways accessible in winter can be a pricey endeavor. Just ask the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
Authority board members on Oct. 18 awarded Eastern Salt Co. the contract to provide sodium chloride – known to its close friends as salt – for use in future snow-and-ice-removal efforts on roadways at Washington Dulles International Airport and on the Dulles Toll Road.
The initial two-year contract includes $920,000 for airport facilities and $736,000 for the toll road. Counting three one-year option periods baked into the contract, the total award could be worth about $4.3 million.
Under questioning from authority board member Walter Tejada (Virginia) on environmental impacts, staff said the materials they use are the same caliber as those laid on roadways by the Virginia Department of Transportation and other local transportation agencies.
That was about the sum total of comments before approval of the contract, although board member Kate Hanley (Virginia), who was chairing the committee meeting where it was discussed, said she was hopeful for some “salty discussion.”
