This article relates to the effect of road salt de-icer on water in the United States, and in particular the effect on salinity levels in freshwater.
One of the telltale signs of winter is road salt, it comes out as soon as the first few snowflakes hit the ground and is used heavily throughout the season, but researchers are raising the flag on how road salt may actually be doing more harm than good.
It’s known as deicing, when trucks travel across localities in much of the country and pour gallons of salt onto highways, sidewalks and just about any paved road, in order to prevent vehicle crashes when it snows. Researchers from The University of Toledo estimated that about 25 million metric tons of sodium chloride, similar to table salt, are dumped on roads across the country, with usage varying by state.
In some regions it varies from as much as 3 to 18 pounds of salt per square meter, which is about the size of a small kitchen table.
“The magnitude of the road salt contamination issue is substantial and requires immediate attention. Given that road deicers reduce car accidents by more than 78%, we worked to strike a careful balance between human safety and mitigating the negative environmental and health impacts triggered by dumping salt on our streets and highways to keep people safe and traffic moving,” said Bill Hintz, assistant professor of ecology at The University of Toledo and lead author of the research.