A staggering seven million tons of road salt have been deposited on Adirondack highways since 1980. If that practice is ever to be curbed, it will owe something to the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, whose final report was released September, 2023.
Charged with reconciling road safety with public health, ecological stability and the economic needs of the Adirondacks when formed in 2021, the Task Force issued several recommendations, among them: salt reduction targets; best management practices; improved training for plow drivers; more funding; and a policy of rapid response to reports of water contamination.
“Although applying rock salt on roadways, parking lots, and sidewalks helps to ensure the safety of those traveling by vehicle or foot, overuse of salt can degrade infrastructure and contaminate runoff that enters streams and waterbodies,” the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation acknowledged.
The Road Salt Reduction Task Force’s findings about the threats from rock salt contamination and its recommendations to state and local authorities for applying it in a manner consistent with best management practices were limited to the Adirondack Park. However, those recommendations should be adopted by agencies throughout New York, a press release from the DEC stated.
One Task Force recommendation – developing an education and outreach campaign – was launched September 19, 2024, with the release of a survey designed to elicit New Yorkers’ attitudes about the use of road salt and public perceptions about the risks and rewards of employing salt as a means of de-icing winter highways. According to Sean Mahar, the state’s Interim Environmental Conservation Commissioner, “the survey will: help DEC learn more about how New Yorkers use rock salt at their homes, businesses, municipal buildings and other properties; help DEC tailor future outreach and education to help reduce overuse of rock salt on roads, parking lots, and sidewalks; and help target effective outreach and meet salt reduction goals to protect lands and waters.”
“We appreciate our partners at the Department of Environmental Conservation for assessing the use of salt, the results of which will help further educate all New Yorkers on how we can work to further protect our environment and our state’s natural resources,” said State Department of Transportation Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez. “The application of road salt is a delicate balance between keeping our roadways safe and protecting the environment, and the Department of Transportation is always refining its approach.”
The health of the state’s residents is among the factors driving the Department of Health to work with the DEC and other state agencies to manage the use of road salt, said State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald.
According to the final report of the Road Salt Reduction Task Force, de-icing practices impact human health as well as the environment.
Sodium in drinking water, for instance, poses significant health risks, especially for those with high blood pressure, as the Adirondack Council has noted.
The effects of road salt on potable water and public health were a focus of this year’s Adirondack Champlain Regional Salt Summit, to be held at “The Conference Center at Lake Placid” in Lake Placid, NY on October 1.
Dr. Dan Kelting, President of Paul Smith’s College and the former director of the college’s Adirondack Watershed Institute, discussed the connection between the use of road salt on winter highways and the high levels of sodium and chloride found in surface and groundwater, as well as in the drinking wells of the Adirondacks.
According to a 2018 study by Kelting, the DOT is responsible for most of the 7 million tons of road salt that was spread on Adirondack roads over the course of the past four decades, dumping 2.5 times more salt on state highways than municipalities apply to county and local roads.
Kelting estimated that 172,000 tons of salt runs off roads and into the environment every year.
About 800 lakes — a third of the total in the Adirondacks — and half the streams have been contaminated by road salt, Kelting found.
And, according to Adirondack researchers, the contamination of wells from salt appears to be worst near state highways.
The Adirondack Council stated that DOT has settled a number of lawsuits alleging contamination of residential
and commercial wells from road salt stored nearby or applied to roads adjacent to the properties.
The contamination of drinking water was also addressed by clean water advocate Dan Shapely, the Riverkeeper organization’s senior director of Advocacy, Policy and Planning, as a matter of environmental justice.
