A coalition of environmental and water-policy groups is calling on the New York state legislature to pass a measure that would limit road salt use statewide.
In 2020 the New York State Randy Preston Road Salt Reduction Act was signed into law mandating a regional task force assess the effects of road salt and draft recommendations to reduce road-salt use in the Adirondacks.
Now, a bill currently pending in the state legislature, would create a New York state Road Salt Reduction Council and Citizen Advisory Committee to implement the Adirondack task force’s recommendations statewide.
Environmentalists are calling for the bill to pass.
ADKAction Executive Director Sawyer Bailey says reducing the use of road salt has been a priority for the organization since 2010.
“Road salt dissolves in water. It flows into our streams and lakes and contaminates our aquifers, our wells, and effectively poisons drinking water. Not only that, but it disrupts the trophic cascade of our ecosystem. So this is really an interdisciplinary issue that affects all aspects of human and natural life,” Bailey said.
Bailey notes that the task force report included more than 160 recommendations, but there was no implementation guidelines, timelines or budget.
“Which is why this bill really fills a need. The creation of this multi-agency council can help really align disparate agencies, disparate systems and reporting structures to have the kind of conversation needed to actually put rubber to the road to implement these solutions,” noted Bailey. “But we also have the second body, this stakeholder and expert committee, that can make sure that people across the state who have really important knowledge and experience in implementation can be a part of the conversation.”
Lake George is among the Adirondack communities that have implemented salt reduction pilot programs. Lake George Association Executive Director Brendan Wiltse says the pending legislation would move toward implementing a statewide salt reduction.
“We’ve also heard very recently about rising salt levels in the New York City drinking water system, specifically the New Croton Reservoir and also some work by Riverkeeper showing concerns related to road salt impacting drinking water supplies in the Hudson River watershed,” reported Wiltse. “The Road Salt Reduction Advisory Council would establish basically the human infrastructure necessary to implement the recommendations that were in the task force report, not just in the Adirondacks, but across New York state.”
Wiltse researched salt concentrations in Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake before moving to Lake George.
“The salt concentrations in Mirror Lake are coming down quite rapidly as a result of implementing these types of practices. And so we’re not proposing something that is sort-of pie-in-the-sky or not really tangible or hasn’t been done. We’ve done this work in various places in the state. We know these practices work and so we would really like to see these practices implemented across New York state,” Wiltse stressed.
The bill passed in the Senate in 2024 and is awaiting floor action. No floor vote has been taken in the Assembly.
