BENEFITS AND COSTS. Clean water: good thing. Safe streets: good thing. Both?

Road salt provides unquestioned safety - and officials say the public increasingly expects to drive on bare pavement during and immediately after storms.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation estimated that a record 700,000 tons of salt will be used on state highways this year, compared with 405,000 tons last winter.

County highway departments handle salting for the DOT, and officials at county and state levels try to control overuse and have employed an array of techniques to make salt work better, such as adding water to make a brine that speeds melting.

"Who wants saltwater to contaminate our streams or groundwater?" said Michael Sproul, the DOT's winter operations engineer.

But he said road departments are under pressure from motorists who demand that highways be free of snow and ice.

"Over time, our level of service has probably crept up," Sproul said.

This winter has proved to be especially troublesome because cold weather requires more salt.

I'm typing this with two more inches of snow on the ground, and more falling.