About Zachary Matson

Zachary Matson has been an environmental reporter for the Explorer since October 2021. He is focused on the many issues impacting water and the people, plants and wildlife that rely on it in the Adirondack Park. Zach worked at daily newspapers in Missouri, Arizona and New York for nearly a decade, most recently working as the education reporter for six years at the Daily Gazette in Schenectady.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Todd Miller says

    It seems to me that the peer-reviewed report by Mr, Kelting (and co-sponsored by ADKAction) on the study of road salt contamination in wells in the Adirondacks in 2019 should have been been released to the public by now. I had hoped that this peer-reviewed report contains helpful data to guide the Salt Reduction Panel as well as provide valuable information to the public. Isn’t that what an Water Institute and an environmental organization suppose to do?

    Just from reading this article, it appears to me that there may be more emphasis on surface water than groundwater, even though just about everyone in the Adirondacks relies on groundwater for a safe source of drinking water. Perhaps the Salt Reduction panel could use a member with more expertise on groundwater hydrology. A lot more could be done to minimize adverse affects of road salt in wells than just requiring a NA and CL water-quality test at time of home sales. What about everybody else not selling or buying their home? There are a lot of existing wells out there–just during the 20-yr period from 2000 to 2020, over 9,000 new drinking-water wells were drilled in the Adirondacks.

    I’m sure that there will be more details available when the Salt Reduction Task Force releases it’s final recommendations, so we’ll have to wait and see what other groundwater remediation ideas are offered before commenting more.

  2. Mike says

    I think the local NYS DOT plow and sanding operators should be trained in monitoring the local weather sites to get a better idea of temperature and precipitation forecasts. For years I have seen salt being applied to bare roads when it’s 40 degrees out or more and sometimes raining. Many times this is occurring when the local forecast calls for dropping temperatures 12 or more hours later in the day. By then the salt may have been applied two or three times and has been washed off by the rain and passing vehicles. Just my 2 cents.

  3. Joe Kozlina says

    When is road salt ,at any level, in our streams or creeks or rivers or wells a good idea? You need a study to do what? This just isnt an adirondack problem. Its a national problem. STOP PUTTING SALT IN OUR WATER SOURCES. Many other ways to travel in the winter months on our roads safely without salting and killing our fresh water. Money is at the root of all these studys. Who gets it and who does not. Ruining our fresh water is not at the root. If that was the case, the salting would stop tomorrow.

  4. Harvey A Ward Jr says

    Why did the use of sand/cinder salting of roads stop? It may have made vehicles dirtier but I think the roads were less slippery since roads spread with rust causing Calcium Chloride/Rock salt are more environmentally hazardous to no return/recovery of all forms of life giving water.

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