Vermont transportation officials describe summer chloride use for dust control; LTAP training limited to municipal staff

The Natural Resources & Energy committee heard from Vermont Agency of Transportation officials and the state's Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) on Tuesday about the use of chloride-based products for summer dust suppression and the scope of related training programs.

Jeremy Reed, chief engineer for the Agency of Transportation, told the committee that the agency reviewed five years of purchases for dust suppression and estimated the department paid for roughly 250 tons of chloride-based material per year for summer use. Reed said 2021 was a high point at about 470.5 tons and that 2019 was a low point (the transcript records "3.84" in 2019 but the unit or meaning was not specified). "There's virtually no likelihood that this would become, you know, migrate...into surface water into a receiving body of water. So it's basically absorbed into the soil," Reed said, describing the agency's view that salt applied to open soil is taken up by soil moisture rather than running directly off into streams.

Reed told the committee the agency treats the summer salt use as a…