(a) The department shall adopt and implement, on or before July 1, 1992, a deicing policy for state highways. The policy shall be set forth in a plan and method for deicing state highways, using all appropriate deicing technologies, while at the same time maintaining highway safety.

(b) The plan shall be submitted to the Legislature on or before July 1, 1992. All or part of the elements of the plan shall be incorporated in the department’s budget proposal for the 1992–93 fiscal year and budget proposals for subsequent fiscal years. The department shall examine all possible funding sources.

(c) The plan shall include, but not be limited to, all of the following:

(1) A review of research conducted in California and other states on the use of deicing salt substitutes and deicing technologies.

(2) When available, the incorporation of applicable technical findings of the ongoing study by the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council which will analyze the costs to the public and private sectors, including, but not limited to, damage to vegetation, highway structures, and motor vehicles, of using salt as a deicing agent as compared with the use of commercially available substitute deicing materials or techniques.

(3) A plan for reducing or eliminating the use of salt as a primary deicing agent on specified routes, including, but not limited to, State Highway Routes 28, 50, 80, and 89 in the Lake Tahoe Basin, and substituting environmentally safe deicing techniques where significant environmental damage has already occurred, in accordance with the legislative intent expressed in subdivision (f) of Section 1 of the act which added this section.

(4) An analysis of the direct cost to each state transportation district for both initial capital costs, including repair of road salt’s environmental damage, and annual costs to convert to an environmentally safe deicing policy.

(Added by Stats. 1991, Ch. 318, Sec. 2.)