Fog Control - I. Stationary Seeding

Left: Looking east from the River Road overpass over I-215, in the southwestern suburbs of Salt Lake City.

In the mid-80's there was a calamitous multi-vehicle accident in the fog at this location, so it seemed like a good place to situate one of our liquid CO2 fog control devices (we placed Unit B nearby, at the Murray Parkway Golf Course Maintenance Shed).

Here is Unit A, situated at the West Jordan Sewage Treatment Plant's Septic Dump Facility. Yes, we became familiar with all kinds of out-of-the-way places in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area!

At one point, I noticed that although there were all kinds of gas masks and warning signals at the ready in the event of a massive chlorine spill at the Sewage Treatment Plant, we visitors had been issued no gear, and no instructions. "If you hear those alarms go off," one plant worker stated, "you should run, run, run away just as far and as fast as you possibly can, and don't you dare open your mouth, or even think about breathing!" Whew! That put my mind at rest! They had given some thought about the visitors after all!

Left: Here is Unit C, located at the Amoco refinery at the northern edge of Salt Lake City, showing the liquid CO2 tanks and the solenoid valve controlling the CO2 release.

The absence of fog this particular winter of 1989/90 gave us little experience in the effectiveness of liquid CO2 seeding for improving visibility for traffic. It was a lot of work putting these things together, however, for little in the way of grant money. Kind of reminds me of community theater in that respect....

Since 1990, I know that there has been at least one major multi-vehicle accident in the fog near this location.