Road salt is very commonly used in wintertime because it helps keep roads from freezing over and creating unsafe driving conditions.
Because of its ice melting ability, road salt is often viewed as a necessity in the winter, but too much road salt use can lead to a variety of problems.
[Note: Conventional oil and gas wastewater frequently spread on dirt and gravel roads also contributes significant amounts of sodium and chlorides on roadways and in runoff year round. Read more here.]
When the salt gets applied to the road, the excess gets washed away off the road and ends up in undesired areas due to runoff.
This road salt often ends up in our waterways at alarming levels and this can create many problems, including killing plants and animals living in or near streams and deteriorating water quality.
In addition, salt can be incredibly difficult to remove from drinking water and most treatment plants are not able to remove salt, which means that this road salt can potentially end up in your body depending on your drinking water source.
Master Watershed Stewards in Westmoreland, Indiana, and Armstrong counties have noticed the need for and importance of monitoring salt concentrations in our local waterways during the winter.
The stewards are partnering with the Izaak Walton League of America’s Salt Watch Monitoring Program to test local rivers and streams throughout the three counties.
The Salt Watch Monitoring Program provides interested participants with free testing kits that have everything needed for someone to test a body of water for salt concentrations.
Each kit comes with four chloride strips that allow the participant to test a waterway multiple times throughout the winter.
The test strip gets dunked in the water and then the reading is compared to the given conversion chart to figure out a total parts per million (ppm) of salt concentration present in the sample.
Any reading that is above 230 ppm is considered toxic for aquatic life.
As a follow up to the test results, the Master Watershed Stewards plan to create a presentation or document with their findings that highlight salt concentrations throughout the winter.
This will then be shared with the general public and help spread awareness about the issues salt can cause in our waterways.
Are you interested in testing your local waterway for salt? Request your free Salt Watch Kit from the Izaak Walton League. You'll receive four chloride strips and instructions on how to collect and report your data.
For more information on programs, initiatives, upcoming events and how you can get involved, visit the Master Watershed Stewards in Westmoreland, Indiana and Armstrong webpage.
(Reprinted from Penn State Extension Watershed Winds newsletter. Click Here to sign up for your own copy.)
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Related Article:
-- Millions Of Gallons Of Conventional Oil & Gas Wastewater Spread Illegally On Dirt Roads, Companies Fail To Comply With DEP Waste Regulations - By David E. Hess, Former Secretary Department of Environmental Protection
[Posted: December 13, 2021] PA Environment Digest
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