Take Me Home, Salty(?!) Roads...

Road salt.  It's that weird, bluish-greenish stuff that flies out of the back of snow plow truck, scatters all over the road, and tries to make things a bit less icy (a tall order in the North Country).  Besides making road travel somewhat safer, road salt also does a good job of wreaking havoc on local ecosystems.  Every winter, the Department of Transportation (DOT) lays down an astonishing amount of road salt.  In the winter of 2013-14 alone, the DOT used 1,048,760 tons of the salty stuff to de-ice roads statewide, with about 98,000 tons used solely in the Adirondacks (Cutting Road Salt 2014). The amount of salt we use on our roads each year will likely be responsible for a variety of noticeable changes in local ecosystems.  In a region like the Adirondacks, where "seventy-seven percent of the surface-water area and 52 percent of the stream length... is what we call hydrologically connected to our paved roads," we must seriously consider the impact our current deicing practices have on surrounding ecosystems, as "we have the potential ... for a serious amount of environmental degradation" (Cutting Road Salt 2014).

Though road salt is effective in de-icing roads, the processes we use to apply it and the amount of salt we use are both wasteful and destructive to the environment.  The current standard process for applying road salt -- shooting it out of the back of a moving truck -- causes 30 to 40% (about $27 million a year wasted) of the salt to bounce off the road and into the surrounding woodlands (Wasteful, Damaging 2015).  Not only is this a complete waste of money, as road salt costs around $80 a ton, but it is an immediate threat to wildlife.  Scattered road salt attracts salt-deprived wildlife to roads, which is dangerous to the animals and to motor vehicles, and can kill birds that ingest it in high concentrations (Wasteful, Damaging 2015).  Additionally, road salt can easily contaminate freshwater ecosystems and human drinking water resources in the park.  For a small stream in Saranac Lake, the average chloride level is 78 milligrams per liter, but after a warm period last April, the chloride concentration skyrocketed to 1,200 mg/L (Cutting Road Salt 2014) due to runoff contaminated with road salt.  Chloride levels that high can kill aquatic and land species, inhibit their growth and reproduction, release toxic metals from sediment into water bodies, and can cause high blood pressure in humans (Cutting Road Salt 2014).

When we consider all of the negative economic, environmental, and health impacts of excessive salt use, and the fact that these impacts are not new news in the scientific community, it is absurd to think that we continue to use it every year, especially when alternatives exist.  There are alternative techniques for road de-icing currently available, but most DOTs are reluctant to change.  We continue to use inefficient practices even though we know that they are economically wasteful.  If the economic difficulties of switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources are the major roadblock to a more sustainable future, then it would seem as though the economic benefits of changing our road de-icer would be a catalyst for action.  This is clearly not the case.  What we see in the road salt dilemma, and probably with climate change mitigation, is an overwhelming resistance to change of any sort, even if it will save us quite a bit of money.  At what point will we be forced to change?  Perhaps when all of the animals and plants have died off and we no longer have uncontaminated drinking water, we will be willing to use a bit less road salt.

I am forever indebted to the ever-wonderful Kate Brouns of the Hamilton College Nesbitt-Johnson Writing Center for her words of encouragement and her help in editing my often sub-par grammar.  She is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy day. I thank you, and my writing thanks you.  Without your help, my writing would be filled with passive voice, double negatives, subject-verb agreement errors, and dangling participles.  Huzzah!

Sources:

Guest Contributor. "Road Salt Use Wasteful, Damaging." Adirondack Almanack. 5 April 2015. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2015/04/road-salt-use-wasteful-damaging.html>

Lynch, Mike. "Cutting Road Salt on Adirondack Roads." Adirondack Almanack. 1 Dec 2014. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/12/cutting-road-salt-on-adirondack-roads.html>

Lynch, Mike. "Adirondack Road Salt Alternatives Sought." Adirondack Almanack. 21 Sep 2014. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/09/road-salt-alternatives-sought-for-adirondacks.html>

Hetzler, Paul. "Coping with Trees ad Landscape Winter and Salt Damage." Adirondack Almanack. 3 Jan 2014. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2014/01/coping-trees-landscape-winter-salt-damage.html>

Gibson, Dave. "Dave Gibson: Common Road Salt is Toxic." Adirondack Almanack. 12 Jan 2011. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2011/01/dave-gibson-common-road-salt-is-toxic-to-the-adirondacks.html>

Editorial Staff. "Road Salt Study Raises Concerns, Offers Suggestions." Adirondack Almanack. 22 Feb 2010 <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2010/02/road-salt-study-raises-concerns-offers-suggestions.html>

Warren, John. "The Biggest Threats to Adirondack Water Resources." Adirondack Almanac. 26 April 2008. <http://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2008/04/the-biggest-threats-to-adirondack-water-resources.html>