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Recent Snow Melt Causes Damaging Salt Runoff Recent Snow Melt Causes Damaging Salt Run-off

By Collin Davies

Reporter Collin Davies: Here in Syracuse, the snowy winters are a love/hate relationship. And it looked for a few days this week, it was coming to an end. With all the snowmelt recently, we are left looking at an ugly reality. The cost of keeping our streets clean of snow is using road salts. These salts have a broad negative impact on the environment, and city infrastructure. Fiona Thayer is the director of an environmental organization that researches sustainability at Syracuse University. Thayer explained why road salts are a large issue.

Fiona Thayer: “They are super harmful to aquatic environments specifically. Snow salt that is used to melt snow has chloride in it. When you salt snow then rain comes then runs it off into drains and into all the surrounding environments. And when there’s too much chloride in an environment, that’s basically toxic to all the living plants and animals in that environment. So it basically just poisons the entire environment and kills what is living there.”

Reporter: And you may be wondering how this works. Well, all around the CNY and Syracuse Area, there’s signs that mark different watersheds. This is the Onondaga Lake watershed. Anything that gets dumped on this side of the line goes down to into lake Onondaga, such as the road salts, which as you known, cause environmental damage. Road salt also damages infrastructure such as bridges. It accelerates potholes and corrosion on many roads such as I-81. Mitigating the effects may be cheaper than all the repairs.

Fiona Thayer: When you have an area like Syracuse, that happens to be surrounded by lakes and also is very impacted by snow, it’s definitely worth the investment.

Reporter: Governor Hochul established a Salt Reduction Task Force last month. They will research ways to mitigate the use and effects of road salt. From the Salt City, Collin Davies, N-C-C News

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News)— This week in Syracuse the weather was warmer than usual. With temps in the 50’s for a few days and rain, there was a lot of runoff. Road salt was one of those.

Road salt is harmful to the environment, yet it is released in masses. It puts a vast amount of chloride into the environment.

Fiona Thayer is the director of sustainability for Syracuse University’s Student Association Sustainability Committee. Thayer detailed what happens when salt reaches Onondaga Lake.

“That’s toxic to all the living plants and animals in that environment. So it just poisons the entire environment and kills what is living there,” Thayer said

Salt runoff also corrodes city infrastructure. Thayer said that mitigating the effects may be cheaper than making the repairs.

“When you have an area like Syracuse, that happens to be surrounded by lakes and also is very impacted by snow, its definitely worth the investment,” Thayer said

Governor Kathy Hochul established a Salt Reduction Task Force last month. The task force’s job is to research ways to mitigate the use and effect of road salts.

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