The goal of anti-icing is to prevent the snow from bonding to the pavement and forming ice.   This is done by placing material on the streets before it snows.  The material used in anti-icing is liquid magnesium chloride, an agent that is also used after snow has fallen to “de-ice” City streets.

Weather conditions have to be right to anti-ice successfully:

• If there is rain mixed with snow, anti-icing treatment (liquid magnesium chloride) is not effective as it will simply wash off the pavement.
• The pavement temperature should be below freezing with low humidity for anti-icing treatment to be effective.

Typically, Denver’s Public Works will use around 50,000 gallons of liquid magnesium chloride in a 24 hour period between anti-icing and de-icing.