The long, long wait for road salt legislation

Covering legislation can be maddening — and following coverage of legislation can be even harder.

First, there are the bills that get introduced each year. It’s hard to know which ones of those to take seriously.

Then there are the various procedural steps that happen along the way. A bill passes one chamber then goes to another.  If one chamber amends the legislation, then it has to go back to the other.

Then once both chambers pass the same thing, governors do their thing.

Right now, we’re waiting to see if a bill to study the damage caused in the Adirondacks by road salt will be approved by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

We’ve covered the bill since it was unveiled last winter in Saranac Lake. The Senate and Assembly approved the bill this summer. Now, we await the governor — will he sign it into law or veto it?

Environmental groups are clearly anxious and a whole host of them, from the Adirondack Council to the state’s League of Conservation Voters, released a statement this week urging the governor to sign the bill.

The bill itself requires a study of the damage and tries to figure out if the state’s Department of Transportation can keep roads open and safe without doing as much harm to water supplies.

Readers of this newsletter surely know by now what we’re talking about, but to repeat some findings from two stories this spring and this summer:

Across upstate New York and in the Adirondacks, road salt has seeped into drinking water supplies, poisoned wells, endangered public health and threatened people with financial ruin. In an average year, according to the Clear Roads maintenance research consortium, New York spreads roughly 50,000 pounds per mile on every lane of state highway, making it one of the heaviest users in America. But state officials have largely escaped accountability for the resulting pollution.

It’s hard to know how much damage road salt may be causing to drinking water supplies. One rough estimate found nearly a half-million New Yorkers drink from wells that could be contaminated by salt, though researchers admitted their guess was on the high end.

So far, the state hasn’t had to quantify the damage or pay for widespread cleanup, despite knowing about salt’s environmental and health dangers for decades. Read my story below.