PEOPLE
P R O T E C T I N G L A K E G E O R G E S I N C E 1 8 8 5 • JANUARY 2 0 1 4
© Carl Heilman II
The Official Newsletter of the Lake George Association
Winter Water Quality Issues: A Low Salt Diet for the Lake
W
ell, it is already the beginning of a new year believe it or not. And while the ice and snow might be keeping us off the Lake right now that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. Yes - that’s right - there is no time of year when lake protection isn’t on our minds! And in the winter time, that means thinking about snow, ice, salt, and water quality impacts. Water quality impacts from road salt in the winter has unfortunately been a problem for a while. For decades the balancing of municipal budgets and road safety with the environmental impacts of salt has been a challenge nationwide. The bottom line is that salt is cheap and effective when it comes to keeping winter roads safe for driving. The New York Times ran a great Opinion piece in November of 1987 titled “A Salt Substitute for America’s Roads”. The article reviewed the environmental and economic impacts of salt use and work to find suitable alternative products, concluding: “Salt, an increasingly anachronistic
element of 20th-century travel, deserves a 21stcentury replacement.” We couldn’t agree more.
However, unfortunately the salt problem is still largely the same today as it was thirty years ago. That doesn’t mean that the Lake George Lake George Association • www.lakegeorgeassociation.org
Community hasn’t been working on it. In fact, some good forward progress has been made. In 2007 some basic data about salt usage within the Lake George Watershed was gathered. There are 680 miles of county, local, state and federal roads within the Lake George watershed that need to be maintained during the winter. The average application rates of sand and salt in tons per year per lane mile are 42 and 13 respectively. That translates into an estimated 29,000 tons of sand and 9,000 tons of salt applied on roads within the Lake George Watershed annually! Now that we know what we are facing, we can work on decreasing the amount of sand and salt used each winter on our roads. Last April, a Municipal De-Icing Best Practice Forum was held in Lake George for local Highway Superintendents and their spreader crews. The Forum was sponsored by the Lake Champlain Basin Program and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and organized by staff at the Lake Champlain – Lake George Regional Planning Board, the Lake George Association and the Warren County Soil and Water Conservation District. Over 65 local Highway Superintendents and staff from 21 municipalities attended. Also in attendance were NYS DOT employees from Warren, Washington, Clinton, Essex and Hamilton Counties. The Forum covered the latest information on Best Management Practices and how to reduce salt usage on our roads. It also provided info on many of the initiatives already underway. The Village of Lake George has already been using alternative products for a few years now and reports that it has been working well, allowing them to decrease the amount of salt they have to use. The Town of Bolton is working on a new storage shed that will hold an alternative deicing product, allowing them to use an alternative product as well. In 2011 LGA • 518-668-3558 • January 2014 • page 1