Road salt key issue in state transportation budget hearing
By Gwendolyn Craig
The state Department of Transportation is following best practices to reduce road salt use, its commissioner told lawmakers on Thursday, but an Adirondack Park organization said DOT isn’t doing enough and praised local highway departments instead for their efforts.
In a 2019 study of 500 water wells in the Adirondack Park, the Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College found 64% had more sodium than the acceptable levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Consuming too much salt can lead to negative health impacts like hypertension, heart and kidney disease and stroke.
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Sawyer Bailey, executive director of the nonprofit organization AdkAction, said some of the wells with the worst contamination were downslope of state highways. She called the Adirondack Park the “canary in the coal mine” for a salt contamination problem that is statewide.
But state legislators at a transportation hearing on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed $252 billion budget heard somewhat differing accounts of DOT’s progress toward reducing road salt from Bailey and Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez.
State Sen. Liz Kreuger, a Manhattan Democrat and chair of the Senate’s Finance Committee, asked Dominguez about runoff from state highways and what was being done.
Dominguez referenced The Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, which after a series of delays, released a report in the fall of 2023 including best management practices for keeping too much sodium chloride off roads.
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The recommendations, Dominguez said, were “really critical.” DOT has been executing them, she said. For example, DOT is using a tool to calibrate how much salt it is applying and where.
But the commissioner said DOT was focusing efforts on educating local highway departments “to make sure they’re addressing … some of those best practices.”
Bailey later testified before lawmakers, asking that of the $156 million the governor has proposed for snow and ice management, to set aside funds to implement the recommendations in the Adirondack Road Salt Task Force Report. AdkAction would particularly like to see the use of live-edge snowplows, salt brine spreaders, and the use of more weather tracking equipment.
State Assemblyman William Magnarelli, chair of the transportation committee and a Democrat from Onondaga County, said he’d heard there were road salt reduction studies and that DOT was implementing some of the best practices.
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“Are you saying they’re not?” he asked Bailey.
“I don’t believe the recommendations are being implemented to their fullest extent,” Bailey said. “Those of you who drive around the Adirondack Park have seen plenty of plows dropping salt when there’s no precipitation coming down and no snow pack on the road. Our communities see it plain and clear, particularly our local county highway road managers, who are doing their part to reduce salt.”
In written testimony, Sawyer pointed to a network of more than two dozen North Country town and county highway departments, who have successfully reduced their road salt and sand use by pre-treating roads with salt brine and transitioning to sharper plow blades. As a result, there is less salt use, cost-savings for local governments and maintained road safety, she said.
Before lawmakers, Sawyer said it would take time for a larger institution like the DOT to make changes, but said there was plenty more it could do, starting this year.
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Magnarelli requested a meeting with AdkAction to estimate a value on implementing some of the management practices.
MaryJane Shimsky, a Democratic assembly member from Westchester County, expressed support for tackling road safety with other options than road salt.
Sawyer estimated that the DOT could reduce its road salt use by 20% in one year “through material spending reductions in a single winter if given the opportunity to be entrepreneurial. From there, a 50% reduction of road salt use and road salt pollution can be achieved.”
AdkAction also called on lawmakers to pass a law that would guide the implementation of the task force’s report and create a “salt czar” position in the governor’s office.
Top photo: State road signs indicate a portion of Route 86 in Wilmington is part of a salt-reduction program, as photographed in 2019. Photo by Mike Lynch
Road Salt is the worst pollutent in the ADKs. and on the outside of the Blue line boundries .Our Northern NY homeland is and has been know forever for it’s waterways ,streams ,rivers lakes and ponds , all being polututed with our wells and springs by the salyt they have dumped on the roads every winter , Just go over any bridge , they dump the salt on the bridge and road than plow it right over the edge ,Here on the out skirts of the park many of our wells and local streams and rivers no longer support the fish or habitat that they used to, just 20yrs ago , all because the people want the illusion of clear roads , Time to go back to straight sand and better plowing along with slowing down during the winter weather as we used to ..
And water pollution/habitat damage aren’t the only issues. Salt is corrosive/destructive to virtually ALL of our road infrastructure, in addition to our vehicles. It seems like a relatively inexpensive way to make roads safer, but in reality, it is VERY expensive to taxpayers and vehicle owners. And people wonder why NYS taxes are so high. Perhaps restrict its use to urban areas, or altogether, which makes the most sense. Sand seems to work fairly well in trouble spots.
My local NYS DOT is dropping huge amounts of salt. Standard practice. Maybe the NYS DOT administration isn’t putting out the word. Maybe State reps attending these meetings are blowing sunshine up your $%%.
In the Finger Lakes our state road that runs along Canandaigua Lake’s east side, is “snow white” with salt until traffic wears it off. Our local town highway dept; Town of Gorham, heavily salts our town roads that drain directly to the lake. I’ve personally invited the highway super to the annual online Adk. highway supers discussion of salt reduction techniques. When I followed up with him if he viewed it, I was met with silence. Same thing the following year. I emphasized that this was a discussion by “his peers” in their local highway depts. Again, no response. He is Republican and guaranteed re-election until he decides to quit.
Bring Betty Little out of retirement.
Amen. That woman got things done
perhaps some funding could provide water filtration systems for areas most affected? I know this isn’t the long term solution for what can be done about need snow abatement but for those having to drink the water, it would make them feel as though someone cared.
The author has obviously not driven on Adirondack roads in any recent winter. Adirondack highways and roads are seldomly plowed and even more seldomly salted. Maybe that’s a result of the hard work of the road salt task force – but I certainly have questioned my safety many, many times driving between Keene and Saranac Lake. How can we ensure safe roads (especially after a real winter like this winter has been) for the people that live, work and visit here?