Stripes county residents are seeing on State Road 32 are caused by the brine solution officials use during and before storms which makes it easier to clear snow.

Utah Department of Transportation crews in Kamas use a truck with a 1,300-gallon tank to spread the mixture of mostly salt and water.

The goal is to treat highways nearly 48 hours before storms so drivers don’t get stuck, said Darrell Roberts, a UDOT station supervisor in Park City.

With the price of road salt increasing, Roberts said the state uses less by pre-treating roads with brine before storms.

“We spray it out on the road before the storm and it creates a little bit of a barrier on the road to where the snow and ice can’t bond to it,” Roberts explained.

The brine solution melts enough snow that salt can begin working when it hits the street, he said.

“It activates the salt a lot quicker,” Roberts said, adding that brine also helps hold the salt dust in place. “It’s amazing how much more of it stays down.”

With brine the state uses less salt, which impacts the environment less, he explained.

“The brine is a lot safer than the straight salt, because you don’t have to use as much salt if you’re using brine,” Roberts said.

Most UDOT snowplows in Summit County are spraying brine each time they take to the road, he said.

“It goes into the pores of the road, which also helps with clean-up time at the end of the storm,” Roberts said.

Summit County Public Works Superintendent Mark Offret said he could clearly see stripes from the brine driving home to Oakley Thursday night on S.R. 32.

This weekend, the solution could prevent snow from sticking to highways.

But the solution is not used on roads the county plows, Offret said.

“We don’t think it’s that effective, and with the red salt that we use we don’t have problems with snow sticking to the road,” he said.

Still, brine can stick to the road preventing ice from forming for several days, Roberts said.

“The federal government has done a lot of tests on the use of brine,” he said. “Salt does stay on the road a lot better if it is sprayed with brine in a wet mixture.”

So far this winter there has been less snow than last year and UDOT has used a lot less salt.

Brine has been used on roads in Summit County since 2002, Roberts said.