Rochester preps for Winter Salt Week
(ABC 6 News) – Winter Salt Awareness Week, a collaboration of organizations across the United States and Canada dedicated to raising awareness about salt pollution and finding ways to reduce the amount we use, begins Monday.
Salt pollution is a major problem in Minnesota, specifically from deicing salt used on roads and sidewalks.
Forty percent of all salt pollution in the state comes from road salt.
Rochester alone uses between 3,000 and 5,000 tons on average – a significant amount considering it only takes a teaspoon of salt to permanently pollute just five gallons of water, and the city isn’t even covering every inch of its 450 miles of road.
“We’ve set a level of service for the city and for us that’s main roads we’re generally getting to bare pavement,” said Dan Plizga, street maintenance manager for Rochester Public Works. “Once you get off into neighborhoods, especially dead end streets, you know we’re going to plow. If it’s a hill we might sprinkle a little salt.”
In many spots around the city, you can see the physical damage that much salt causes.
You may even see it on your car.
However, there’s a less visible impact happening in our waterways.
Chandi McCracken-Holm is the Smart Salt training administrator for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, overseeing the programs that teach people how go about reducing their salt output.
“The state of Minnesota currently has a standard of 230 mg/L at which we know that there is an effect on aquatic life,” she said. “When it comes to fish, that means the higher the concentration of chloride in the water body, the smaller they may grow.”
Luckily, Rochester’s waterways aren’t doing too bad.
“As of this moment, the levels of chloride in the river are not into the danger zone,” said Keith Hanson, a member of the Izaak Walton League’s Rochester chapter, a partner of the city’s Salt Week events. “We’d like to keep it that way.”
That’s where all the work the city and the state is doing comes in.
All throughout Winter Salt Week there will be virtual events people can attend to learn more from experts on how to reduce their own salt use, and how they can get their communities involved.
“We aren’t saying we don’t want you to use salt,” said Rachel Strauss, Rochester’s environmental education specialist. “We’re just saying be aware that you don’t need to use a lot of salt. It doesn’t need to crunch under your feet.”
Rochester specifically is also doing a Salt Watch Monitoring program.
Volunteers will receive a kit that allows them to measure the chloride content of a given body of water, and then report their findings so that local governments, scientists, and others can use the data to make better informed decisions.
A special educational meeting will be held Friday, January 31 at 1:30 P.M. at St. Marys University-Rochester for those interested.