Salinization in the Mohawk Watershed
Road salt contamination in the Great Flats Aquifer threatens public health
Heavy use of road salt for snow and ice removal in the winter has damaged our aquatic ecosystems and impaired our drinking water, and given the current trend there is no end in sight. The largest municipal water sources in the lower Mohawk Watershed, serving nearly 250,000 people in Colonie, Cohoes, Glenville, Rotterdam, Schenectady and Scotia, all show evidence of increasing salt-related contamination over time, and all are exceeding public health thresholds for sodium. High chloride levels in water from some municipalities that draw from the Great Flats Aquifer may be driving corrosion of pipes and plumbing in homes. The recently reported lead (Pb) levels in the Village of Scotia and in the Scotia-Glenville high school may be caused by pipe corrosion and lead-leaching that may ultimately be tied to contamination of the aquifer by road salt. So this is an important and emerging story about road salt and the water we drink.
Road salt, which is the mineral halite (NaCl - sodium chloride), is applied as a deicer in the winter on roads and highways [1]. The fate of that salt in the watershed and across the state should be a greater concern because of the damage it is causing year round, not just in the winter. The Governor of New York has empaneled a task force for the reduction of road salt use in the Adirondacks. New York should follow the lead of Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and other states that are working toward a whole-state solution because impairment of our aquatic ecosystems and drinking water extends well beyond the boundaries of the Adirondack Park.
Rock salt is used in enormous quantities for road deicing in the winter. But the effects of this salt on our surface water and groundwater are felt year round. The salt in this photograph, accidentally tipped at a turnaround, is in Schenectady County (photo: JI Garver, 2022).
Although evidence of the problem is emerging in municipal water quality reports, there appears to be no coordinated effort in the Mohawk Watershed to address the source of contamination of public water supplies. In addition, the effect that road salt is having on private well water is poorly studied and may be another major hidden threat (see this Reuters report) [2]. Let’s start at the beginning, which is the use of road salt in the winter to make our roads safer for travel.
New York: the King of Road Salt. New York uses more road salt than any other state. Although there are a number of known pathways for entry of NaCl to the environment, by far the most significant in the Northeast is through the application of road salt as a deicer in the winter, and this overall use includes salt storage at municipal facilities [15,16]. The amount of road salt used in the US has increased dramatically since the early 1990s [17]. It is not difficult to connect this use to the observation that the amount of sodium and chloride has increased significantly in both our drinking water and surface streams [01,15,16,18].
Annual domestic use of rock salt for road deicing in the US. Data are from the US Geological survey annual mineral inventories (2003 to 2022), and from the summary in Jackson and Jobbagy 2005 (for pre-1971 data), and a summary by Matos and Kostick (USGS). NY State is the largest user of road salt and recent total state consumption for deicing is typically 10-15% of the national road salt total (see AGI here).
It is widely acknowledged in the scientific literature that the heavy use of road salt has changed our freshwater resources in a profound way [12,13,14,15,16]. In an evaluation of salinization in the Northeast (NE US), Sujay Kaushal and colleagues suggested that salinization is “one of the most significant threats to the integrity of freshwater ecosystems in the northeastern United States” [12], and then coined the term Freshwater Salinization Syndrome [13]. They pointed out that salinization can drive the release and mobilization of a diverse set of “chemical cocktails'' that can be problematic, especially in drinking water [14]. These chemical cocktails are in part related to the exchange that occurs when sodium (Na) replaces other ions that are then liberated. Chloride is more conservative and tends to be much less reactive in the environment, and also in the “finishing” process for municipal water. So when chloride levels increase in raw source water, the levels stay elevated in the finished water that is delivered to consumers. Let’s take a look at the sources of municipal water sources in the lower part of the Mohawk Watershed and see how salt is affecting them.
Municipal water sources. Colonie and Cohoes use the Mohawk River as a raw water source for municipal needs, but a greater number of people are served by groundwater from the Great Flats Aquifer (GFA). This aquifer is one of the most important sources of municipal water in the Watershed and one of the more significant aquifers in NYS [19, 20]. The municipalities of Scotia, Glenville, Schenectady, Rotterdam, Rotterdam Junction, and Niskayuna all draw water from the GFA, which includes sand, and gravel constructed by the glacial and post-glacial Mohawk River. The Niskayuna well field is not directly connected with the GFA, but it has similar types of coarse river deposits. The GFA is hydraulically connected to the Mohawk River so these municipalities are essentially drinking the Mohawk River, but naturally filtered [21]. However, some wells in the GFA, like those of Scotia, have more complicated flow paths and do not directly draw from the Mohawk and are thus more susceptible to contamination [21]. Fortunately all of these municipalities test their water and provide this information to consumers through annual water quality reports.
Annual Water Quality Reports. The NYS Department of Health requires annual reporting on the quality of the water that municipalities deliver [3]. In the 2021 reports, municipalities using the Great Flats Aquifer reported serving 140,938 people with 48,676 service connections. The Mohawk River is now the primary source of raw water for Colonie (the Latham Water District or LWD) and the City of Cohoes, and these two municipalities report serving 102,473 people with 30,048 service connections. Thus together this is a total of 243,411 people with 78,724 service connections.
The annual water quality reports provide information about potential contaminants, including sodium and chloride, and also a class of harmful compounds that are by-products of chlorine disinfection (called disinfection by-products or DBPs). Because these municipal systems serve fewer than 100,000 people, reporting requirements are looser than for bigger systems, and they are not required to report some contaminants (such as chloride) [22].
Sodium versus chloride reported by municipalities in the lower part of the Mohawk River. Groundwater-derived municipal water (as opposed to river water or reservoir water) has the highest concentrations. Dates are the range of data for annual water quality reports that are currently available on the internet (not all are continuous).
The occurrence of chloride in municipal drinking water sources in the lower Mohawk Watershed, including those municipalities that draw directly from the Mohawk (green - Cohoes and Colonie), and those that draw from the Great Flats Aquifer (blue - here Niskayuna, Rotterdam, Rotterdam Junction, and Scotia). Schenectady and Glenville draw from the Great Flats Aquifer, but in the last decade they have not reported chloride values in annual reports. The change in chloride pre-2000 has been documented by the USGS [data source indicated on plot - the range of the Mohawk River is from USGS data, see analysis in 1]. The last two decades of high chloride values in municipal water from the Great Flats Aquifer indicate significant groundwater contamination.
For 2021, the two municipalities that draw directly from the Mohawk River (Cohoes and Colonie) report an average of 25 mg/l for sodium and 41 mg/l for chloride. Municipalities that draw from the GFA report an average of 45 mg/l for sodium, and 88 mg/l for chloride – about twice that of the river. However, the river-drawing municipalities report higher concentrations of disinfectant by-products (DBPs, including TTHM - Total Trihalomethanes and HAA5 - Haloacetic acids). But turning back to the GFA, we see that Rotterdam Junction and Scotia are at the top of the list in terms of reported sodium and chloride.
The NYS DOH provides a statement about the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for sodium and chloride, which is the highest level of a contaminant allowed in drinking water [24]. For the MCL for sodium, they note: “Water containing more than 20 mg/L of sodium should not be used for drinking by people on severely restricted sodium diets. Water containing more than 270 mg/L of sodium should not be used for drinking by people on moderately restricted sodium diets.” [24]. In 2021, every single municipality in the lower Mohawk Watershed that draws from either the Mohawk River or the GFA reported sodium values above 20 mg/l.
The MCL for chloride in US drinking water is 250 mg/l. According to the NYS Department of Health (NYS DOH): “Chloride is essential for maintaining good health. Research has not conclusively demonstrated that human exposure to chloride itself causes adverse health effects, although exposure to high levels of certain chloride salts has been associated with adverse health effects in humans.” (see guidelines here) [24]. Interestingly, the NYS DOH indicates that part of the problem with chloride is that it is associated with sodium. But chloride is more insidious, and a major concern is corrosion [25].
The change in chloride over time in the Great Flats Aquifer is eye-opening and there are a few important observations. One is that chloride levels have increased dramatically, and a question is whether chloride has reached a point where it is driving corrosion and lead-leaching in pipes. Another is that the increase of chloride in the GFA appears to be especially pronounced, with many annual reports of chloride values in excess of 100 mg/l. Finally, some drinking-water sources in the GFA appear to have significant contamination, especially Scotia and Rotterdam Junction.
If we isolate the data from the Village of Scotia we can see this increase, especially given historical values. In the last four years the average reported chloride concentration is 112 mg/l, but it averaged 63 mg/l just a decade ago (2010 and 2012). The apparent change is more remarkable if we go way back before the heavy salt application that started in the early 1990s. Chloride concentrations were 43 mg/l in 1979 and in the pre-road-salt days of 1943 they were 3 mg/l [21]. Thus apparently chloride has increased about 250% since 1979, and nearly 4000% from the more natural or background condition before we initiated this inadvertent experiment in regional salinization.
Salt and Corrosion. When road salt contaminates drinking water, chloride can drive corrosion of pipes in the home [15,25,28,29,32]. The NYS Department of Health tells us that “high chloride levels can cause plumbing corrosion problems, which could shorten the life of plumbing, hot water heaters and appliances, and increase the metal content of the water…” The “metal content” can include lead (Pb) [11]. Obviously the release of lead is problematic for health, and children are particularly susceptible to the neurotoxic effects of lead [see World Health Organization summary here]. In the US, the action level for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion (ppb) [26], the WHO recommends 10 ppb, and in 2021 the EU has implemented a directive of 5 ppb that needs to be met by 2036 [40]. But any exposure to lead is too much [42].
The Village of Scotia. In their 2020 annual water quality report, the Village of Scotia reported that the action level for lead was exceeded at 8 of 30 homes tested (27%), and the 90th percentile was 21.7 ppb (values were as high as 64.5 ppb). In the 2021 annual water quality report, they reported that the action level was exceeded at 4 of 30 homes (13%) and the 90th percentile was 17.9 ppb (values were as high 61 ppb) (2021 report here) [3]. Corrosion of service lines and household plumbing is typically the cause of elevated lead in public systems, which is why these lead values are from analyses of water samples from individual homes and not from the finished water delivered to those homes. This is an important point: the finished water delivered to the home may cause corrosion of pipes in the home, but the root of the problem may be in the chemistry of the municipal water.
The data from Scotia schools is also worrisome. The State of New York now requires regular testing of lead in potable water in all K-12 schools In early April 2021, Susan Swartz, superintendent of the Scotia-Glenville School district, reported the results of lead testing at 398 sources across the school district [4]. For all schools, 108 of those samples were at or above the 15 ppb action level for lead (i.e., 27% failed). Schools with samples that exceeded 15 ppb for lead included Sacandaga, Glendaal, Lincoln, Glen Worden, and both the middle school and high school. The highest number of failures were at the Scotia-Glenville high school where the released data show that 45% of the samples were at or above the action level [5]. If these data were treated like municipal data, the 90th percentile for the high school would be 45 ppb. One sink in an office had a reported lead value of 4170 ppb. These data are sobering.
In late 2022 the Village of Scotia initiated a corrosion control study [6] , because one way to combat corrosion is to add orthophosphate or some other corrosion inhibitor to the finished water. The corrosion inhibitor would reduce leaching of lead and copper that is common in many typical home plumbing systems, especially in older homes. On 15 December 2022, Briana Suparidi reported for WRGB that the Village is conducting this study to“prevent lead from leaching into the water” [7]. At about the same time, Natasha Vaughn-Holdridge reported that a Village official stated that the goal is to get to 15 ppb lead, but as we know that goal should be zero ppb [8]. The results released in 2022 required the Village to do further testing and results were released in Feb 2023.
There is no safe level for lead, which is why the EPA has a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (MCLG) of zero ppb (read EPA overview here) [9]. To fully explore the health issues of lead and the complicated topic of corrosion I suggest the excellent book by Anna Clark entitled “The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy” (review here) [10].
Is road salt causing elevated lead levels in Scotia? A key piece to the puzzle of the elevated lead levels in Scotia drinking water is what is driving corrosion, because without understanding the driver of elevated lead levels, it will be difficult to fix the problem. One hypothesis is that the lead is from leaching pipes and that leaching is being driven by elevated chloride from road salt. So we have a few moving parts in this story. Where is the salt coming from? What do elevated sodium and chloride do to the quality of the water? And how might chloride drive pipe corrosion and lead leaching?
In a recent paper, Ted Stets and colleagues at both the USGS and the EPA wrote: “Corrosion in water-distribution systems is a costly problem and controlling corrosion is a primary focus of efforts to reduce lead (Pb) and copper (Cu) in tap water. High chloride concentrations can increase the tendency of water to cause corrosion in distribution systems.” [25]. There are many reasons for corrosion of pipes in homes by municipal water, and one contributing factor appears to be chloride as discussed, but also the amount of sulfate (or the ratio between the two) [28,25,29].
The EPA established the Lead Copper Rule (LCR) in 1991. In doing so the EPA recognized that lead and copper get into our drinking water primarily through plumbing materials, not directly by finished water [26]. Thus the LCR requires monitoring of lead and copper at the taps of homeowners by municipalities, and values cannot not exceed 15 ppb for lead and 1500 ppb for copper in 10% of the homes tested.
Both the Village of Scotia and the Town of Glenville have salt storage facilities that are located directly over the Great Flats Aquifer, and this is unfortunate. While application to roads, and thus road density, are major factors for groundwater pollution, it is clear that the most extreme cases of contamination are related to salt storage facilities [1]. Is the contamination of the Great Flats Aquifer related to leaching of salt piles at salt storage facilities? The salt storage site for the Town of Glenville is located only 840 meters to the east-southeast of the Scotia well field on what are some of the most permeable parts of the Great Flats aquifer [20]. Thus we need to address leaching and groundwater contamination from these storage sites, as well as the rate of application on our roads. Any remediation plan should consider the contribution of groundwater contamination by salt storage sites.
What about private wells? The problem of salt in groundwater certainly extends to private wells, especially when those wells are adjacent to major roads or salt storage facilities. Unfortunately there are only a few studies aimed at determining the extent of this problem. One recent study of private wells in Orleans in northern NY was prompted by contamination of groundwater by a road salt storage facility [32]. Kelsey Pieper and colleagues showed that 70% of users had stopped using well water and that the problem was most acute in wells downgradient from salt storage facilities and within 30 meters of major roads [32].
Pieper and colleagues also found that chloride correlated with elevated levels of lead and copper in household drinking water [32]. This finding is worrisome and critically important because these homes have independent wells and the lead, copper, and zinc concentrations are undoubtedly resulting from corrosion of pipes, solder, and fittings within the home and not from lead service lines, which are typically implicated in high lead values [33]. Thus in the case of Scotia, where homes are serviced by a water main, there may be two sources of lead: original lead service lines, and lead derived from household plumbing. On 12 December 2022, Briana Supardi reported that “Village officials say the concern with lead comes from the pipes that feed into the homes – not the main water line.” [41]. Maybe, but even without lead service lines, corrosive water can initiate lead-leaching in homes with older plumbing.
A less salty future? There is hope that we can get salt under control, but it will take leadership at the State and local level. In NYS, the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force was established under the Randy Preston Salt Reduction Act (here) [34], and the required Task Force was appointed by Governor Hochul in December 2021 (here) [35]. A stated goal of the bill was “road salt reduction targets to help the Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) reduce the level of contamination in drinking water.” While this bill specifically targets the Adirondacks, it seems clear that the recommendations to the NYS DEC and DOT will be applicable across the State. We know that NYS DOT is already working on salt reduction strategies in the Mohawk Watershed and elsewhere in the State. Zachary Matson reported in the Adirondack Explorer that the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force will “recommend adopting chloride water standards, requiring well testing at time of home sales, extending timelines for filing contamination claims and establishing a series of pilots aimed at reducing salt use” [36]. He recently wrote that the Task Force report was due to be released in early 2023 [37].
Other states have recognized that road salt is causing severe environmental harm, and have taken on the road salt problem. In 2012, Rhode Island started using a salt-brine solution before winter events, and in 2013 the New Hampshire Road Salt Reduction Initiative was launched in response to the large number of surface water bodies waters impaired by chloride (here) [38]. Wisconsin Salt Wise (here) has emerged as a leader in developing approaches to salt reduction, including the introduction of legal strategies aimed at limiting oversalting through liability protection for those who are trained and use best management practices [39].
Hopefully the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force will provide the entire state of NY - not just the Adirondacks - with a road map to a less salty future to protect our surface and drinking water resources. Meanwhile, careful water testing and introduction of corrosion inhibitors may be the next important step for the Village of Scotia. The residents in Scotia deserve transparency as remediation moves forward. The World Health Organization has outlined strategies for communities with elevated lead in their drinking water (here). They suggest that the dialog needs to include a range of stakeholders involved in discussions, including residents. “A wider communication process should be initiated when elevated lead levels have been confirmed, including with water users. Interim remedial actions may need to be taken if lead concentrations in water are high and vulnerable groups are exposed” [40].
This and other Notes from a Watershed are available at: Mohawk.substack.com
Further reading
[1] Garver, JI. 2020, Road Salt: Heavy salt application on roads is damaging the Watershed, In Notes from a Watershed (Newsletter). Mohawk.substack.com
[2] Pell, MB, and Schneyer, J, 2016. A quest for clean water: The Corrosive dangers lurking in private wells., Reuters Investigates. Reuters (here).
[3] Annual Water Quality Reports are available from individual municipalities. Some municipalities have reports posted that are older than one year. The starting point are these links.
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Scotia (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Schenectady (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Niskayuna (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Rotterdam (#4, #5) (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Rotterdam Junction (#3) (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Glenville (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Cohoes (here)
Annual Water Quality Report (2021) - Colonie (Latham Water district) (here)
[4] Letter from Susan Swartz, superintendent of the Scotia-Glenville school district, dated 11 April 2021 (available here).
[5] The winter 2021 testing for lead (Pb) in the Scotia-Glenville school district can be seen in spreadsheet form here.
[6] Prime AE proposal to the Village of Scotia for a Water System Corrosion Control Study (Proposal for Engineering Services) Proposal can be found here. Proposal is dated 3 Nov 2022.
[7] Supardi, Briana, 15 Dec 2022. Water quality improvement plan discussed during Scotia Board meeting. WRGB.
[8] Vaughn-Holdridge, N., 2022. Scotia finds elevated levels of lead in some drinking water samples. The Daily Gazette. 1 December 2022. (here).
[9] US EPA. For a summary of “Basic Information about Lead in Drinking Water” by the US Environmental Protection Agency see this website.
[10] Clark, A., 2018. The poisoned city: Flint's water and the American urban tragedy. Metropolitan Books.
[11] NY Department of Health (DOH), retrieved 2023, “Salt and Drinking water” (link here)
[12] Kaushal, S.S., Groffman, P.M., Likens, G.E., Belt, K.T., Stack, W.P., Kelly, V.R., Band, L.E. and Fisher, G.T., 2005. Increased salinization of freshwater in the northeastern United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(38), pp.13517-13520.
[13] Kaushal, S.S., Likens, G.E., Pace, M.L., Utz, R.M., Haq, S., Gorman, J. and Grese, M., 2018. Freshwater salinization syndrome on a continental scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(4), pp.E574-E583.
[14] Kaushal, S.S., Reimer, J.E., Mayer, P.M., Shatkay, R.R., Maas, C.M., Nguyen, W.D., Boger, W.L., Yaculak, A.M., Doody, T.R., Pennino, M.J. and Bailey, N.W., 2022. Freshwater salinization syndrome alters retention and release of chemical cocktails along flowpaths: From stormwater management to urban streams. Freshwater Science, 41(3), pp.420-441.
[15] Hintz and colleagues note that: “Using Cl−-contaminated water for drinking water can be dangerous because Cl− results in the dezincification of water plumbing and galvanic corrosion, which increases the thinning of pipe walls and metal leaching” see Hintz, W.D., Fay, L. and Relyea, R.A., 2022. Road salts, human safety, and the rising salinity of our fresh waters. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 20(1), pp.22-30. (here)
[16] Dugan, H. A., and Arnott, S. E. (2022). The ecosystem implications of road salt as a pollutant of freshwaters. WIREs Water, e1629. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1629
[17] Lilek, J., 2017. American Geosciences Institute, Roadway deicing in the United States. How a few industrial minerals supply a vital transportation service. AGI Factsheet (here)
[18] Garver, JI, Ragland, CJ, Wright, J., Manon, MR, Mundell, H., Smith, JA, 2023. Regional salinization in the lower Mohawk River: effects on urban streams, the Great Flats Aquifer, and raw water for municipal use. In Garver, JI, Smith, JA., and Rodak, C. 2023. Proceedings of the 2023 Mohawk Watershed Symposium, Union College, Schenectady, NY, March 17, 2023, Volume 13, p. 11-16.
[19] Winslow, J.D., Stewart, H. G., Jr., Johnston, R. H., and Crain, L. J., 1965, Ground-water resources of eastern Schenectady County, New York, with emphasis on infiltration from the Mohawk River: New York State Conservation Department, Bulletin 57, 148 p.
[20] Brown, AG, 1982 “The Schenectady Area - Chapter 2” in Walker, RM, and Finch, AJ, 1982. Atlas of eleven selected aquifers in New York. UG Geological Survey, Water resources investigations, Open File report 82-553. (Prepared in cooperation with the NY State Department of Health). 255 p. (Brown chapter is p. 15-40).
[21] Allen, RV, and Waller, RM, 1982. Considerations for monitoring water quality of the Schenectady aquifer, Schenectady County NY. US Geological Survey, Water Resources Investigations 80-103. 28 p.
[22] NYS DOH. Annual Water Quality Reports. Guidelines and templates. (here)
[23] Broadwater, M.A., Swanson, T.L. and Sivey, J.D., 2018. Emerging investigators series: comparing the inherent reactivity of often-overlooked aqueous chlorinating and brominating agents toward salicylic acid. Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology, 4(3), pp. 369-384.
[24] The NYS DOH provides the specific language to be used for potential contaminants in “Table 1” which is a long summary. It is part of the overall guidance to municipalities for preparing Annual Water Quality Reports. It is available here.
[25] Stets, E.G., Lee, C.J., Lytle, D.A. and Schock, M.R., 2018. Increasing chloride in rivers of the conterminous US and linkages to potential corrosivity and lead action level exceedances in drinking water. Science of the Total Environment, 613, pp.1498-1509.
[26] US EPA - The Lead Copper Rule (LCR), Drinking Water Requirements for States and Public Water Systems. Retrieved March 2023 (here).
[27] The full problem can be explored in the 2016 EPA document “Optimal Corrosion Control Treatment Evaluation Technical Recommendations for Primacy Agencies and Public Water Systems” (here).
[28] Nguyen, C.K., Stone, K.R. and Edwards, M.A., 2011. Chloride‐to‐sulfate mass ratio: Practical studies in galvanic corrosion of lead solder. Journal of American Water Works Association, 103(1), pp.81-92.
[29] Lazur, A., VanDerwerker, T. and Koepenick, K., 2020. Review of implications of road salt use on groundwater quality—corrosivity and mobilization of heavy metals and radionuclides. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution, 231(9), p. 474.
[30] Hayashi M, van der Kamp G, and Rudolph DL. 1998. Water and solute transfer between a prairie wetland and adjacent uplands. 2. Chloride cycle. J Hydrol 207: 56–67.
[31] Lax, S.M., Peterson, E.W. and Van der Hoven, S.J., 2017. Stream chloride concentrations as a function of land use: a comparison of an agricultural watershed to an urban agricultural watershed. Environmental Earth Sciences, 76(20), pp.1-12.
[32] Pieper, K.J., Tang, M., Jones, C.N., Weiss, S., Greene, A., Mohsin, H., Parks, J. and Edwards, M.A., 2018. Impact of road salt on drinking water quality and infrastructure corrosion in private wells. Environmental science & technology, 52(24), pp.14078-14087.
[33] Olson, ED., 2020. How Can I Find Out If I Have a Lead Service Line? Natural Resources Defense Council. (here)
[34] “Randy Preston Salt Reduction Bill Signed into Law” press release on 4 December 2020 by NY Assemblyman Billy Jones (D-Chateaugay Lake). He authored this bill that was then signed by the Governor in late 2020 (here).
[35] Press release. 16 December 2021 “Governor Hochul Announces Appointments to Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force” (here).
[36] Matson, Zach, 2022. Road salt task force report expected in 2023; State agencies continue review of fall draft. Adirondack Explorer, 23 December 2022. (here)
[37] Matson, Zach, 2022. Salt reduction panel previews final report: Draft recommendations include improved tracking, new water quality standards, pilot studies. Adirondack Explorer, 22 August 2022. (here)
[38] US EPA. Winter is Coming! And with it, tons of salt on our roads. Retrieved March 2023. (here).
[39] “Working together to keep freshwater fresh” Wisconsin Salt Wise (here) has become a leader in salt solutions, including best management and legal strategies.
[40] World Health Organization, 2022. “Lead in drinking-water: Health risks and corrective actions” Technical brief. ISBN 978-92-4-002086-3 (here).
[41] Supardi, Briana. 12 December 2022. “Scotia residents voice concerns over water lead testing” WRGB. (here).
[42] All the communities evaluated here except Scotia report using corrosion control in their finished water (for most systems this is the addition of orthophosphate to the finished water). [Note: mg/l = parts per million or ppm; μg/l = parts per billion or ppb; 1000 ppb = 1 ppm]