An impactful state-issued report was recently released representing the work of the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force. The report confirmed the detrimental effects of road salt on our ecosystems, public health, and property.
The report underscores the urgent need for action, detailing the origins of our road salt issue, its broad-ranging impacts, and the necessity for region-specific guidelines on salt usage. The state report offers recommendations to raise public awareness, improve transparency, and promote best practices while suggesting potential pilot projects for a safer road environment. One of the suggested pilot program locations for a chloride-free area is Lake Clear, part of the Upper Saranac watershed.
The State Salt Task Force was co-chaired by the commissioners of Transportation and Environmental Conservation, and included local scientist and Paul Smith’s College Interim President Dan Kelting, as well as other government officials. They were assigned the responsibility to review current salt use practices, assess the impacts of road salt on surface water and groundwater, and make recommendations for a road salt application reduction in the Adirondack Park.
Read the report: https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/adirondackroadsaltreport.pdf
The Upper Saranac watershed is not exempt from these issues: we depend on its water quality for recreation and human consumption. This is why the Upper Saranac Foundation (USF) is actively working with the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute (AWI) to protect water quality.
AWI estimates that the salt load on roads in the Upper Saranac watershed is approximately 1,242 tons annually. Upper Saranac Lake has a substantially higher concentration level of salt compared to Adirondack lakes without paved roads — 10 times higher for sodium, 35 times higher for chloride — and nearly four times greater than it was in 1991.
Road salt is having direct and indirect effects on aquatic ecosystems. Excessive road salt application is leaching into surface and groundwater, releasing toxic substances into our water supplies, harming aquatic life, killing vegetation, and threatening our health. High salinity in groundwater can contribute to high blood pressure and other health conditions in humans, and destroy plumbing and appliances in households. There are now numerous households in the Upper Saranac watershed that have documented contaminated well water and are now forced to purchase bottled water for household use.