Aurora trying to 'beet' cost of salt

Aurora aldermen Tuesday earmarked $1.1 million of the city's motor fuel tax funds to pay for the coming winter's snow removal.

They also announced that staff members may have discovered an environmentally and economically friendly solution to keep spending that entire allocation.

Steven Meyer, director of public properties, said he and his staff plan to test GEOMELT - a beet-based accelerator that improves the melting capabilities of salt - this winter on downtown streets, bridges and sidewalks.

According to city officials, several nearby municipalities including Carol Stream and Glen Ellyn, St. Charles, Evanston and Lake Forest. have used the mixture, which is a natural agricultural product blended with sodium.

According to the company's Web site, GEOMELT products can cut salt use by as much as 30 percent while remaining colorless, odorless and harmless to carpets and flooring.

Meyer said the city used 24,000 tons of salt last winter. Tuesday, aldermen also approved spending $54.47 per ton for bulk highway salt for the winter and $10,560 worth of calcium chloride.

The beets used to make GEOMELT are not the common red variety that people eat.

Sugar beets are white in color and much larger than red beets.

A mature sugar beet measures up to a foot long and weighs 3 to 5 pounds. The mixture isn't sugary because the product is made by extracting the sugar from the beets so that only a waste product remains.

The de-icing formulation was devised when growers noticed that the sugar beet waste did not freeze.

"If there's a product out there that can help us use less salt that would be better for the environment, we certainly want to look into it," Meyer said.

The city is considering placing an order for GEOMELT later this month.