NYSDEC: New recommendations for a statewide focus on reducing rock salt usage
NEW YORK STATE (WROC) — Last September, the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force laid out a plan to reduce salt usage in Adirondack Park to protect waterways and other delicate ecosystems in the park. According to that report in just Adirondack Park alone, there are over 193 thousand tons, or over 386 million pounds of road salt used annually. The goal now is to reduce those numbers and those around the state in a joint effort between the DEC, DOH, and DOT according to Alexander Smith, the Assistant Division Director for the DEC's Division of Water.
"Really the recommendations could apply and do apply really statewide. So, they're really universal things that we can look to try and reduce the impact of road salt, rock salt usage on the environment, public health, and maintaining safe travel through," said Smith.
Some of those recommendations include looking at alternatives like brining, which when applied before storms, has been found to lessen the amount of salting ultimately needed. Other recommendations also focused on stricter water quality standards for Chloride of which excess amounts can cause stress on aquatic ecosystems, drinking water supplies, and impact lake turnovers.
Rob Fitch is the Director of Transportation Maintenance at the NYSDOT and has helped to lead the charge on salt reduction across the state.
"So we're focusing more on the management of our salt use, meaning we're paying attention to our application rates, we're paying attention to post-storm reviews, we're paying attention to the impacts that our salt had on our level of service. And we're just checking that balance to make sure that the amount of salt we're putting out on the roadways is doing its job," said Fitch on the third episode of NYSDOT's podcast 'The D.O.T. P.O.D.'.
That includes new technology being installed across the NYSDOT's fleet to closely track the amount of salt being deployed, where the trucks are, and even monitoring road temperatures to better understand the impact of each pass with salt or brine.
The NYSDOT has also been running pilot tests, some even before the recommendations came down from the task force, focused on limiting salt usage in certain areas and using alternative methods.
We initiated a couple of Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Pilots a couple of years ago, actually, in advance of this task force," said Fitch. "And as part of the Task Force report, we are committed to continuing those pilots, as well as we're going to add an additional pilot, which is going to be a liquids-only pilot, meaning we're not going to spread any granular material [on part of the roads in Adirondack Park]."
It is important to note as well, that salt is not the DOT's main method for clearing roadways. They focus on plowing, or mechanical clearing, of snow and ice first as is with many local and municipal services. Which is where new funding from the NYSDEC and the Clean Water Infrastructure Act comes in.
"We're funding things this year for the first time, like live edge plows that help make better contact with the road and remove snow and ice, brine-making equipment, salt storage, proper salt storage to be able to cover those rock salt piles so that when it rains the rock salt isn't just running off without even before it's been applied to the roads," said Smith.
There is also a public survey from the DEC working to collect data on how the public utilizes rock salt, from how they apply it, to how much they use and see how aware they are of the potential impacts. You can find the survey here , and the data collected is expected to be used to help build educational outreach tools in the future.
