Mirror Lake progress highlighted at annual salt summit 

Key takeaways from Lake George Association’s road salt reduction gathering, held this year in Lake Placid

By Zachary Matson

Salt concentrations in Mirror Lake, once bad enough to disrupt important seasonal nutrient mixing, are steadily declining – a sign that efforts to reduce salt use and improve stormwater infrastructure in Lake Placid are paying dividends.

Researchers shared the signs of progress on Mirror Lake at the Lake George Association’s ninth annual salt summit held in Lake Placid earlier this month. 

The event included presentations and panels on Mirror Lake, the challenges facing private contractors attempting to reduce salt use and how infrastructure design can minimize the need to use salt. Here are four takeaways from the event’s panels: 

The tide is turning on salt pollution in Mirror Lake

After years of rising chloride concentrations,  Mirror Lake experienced disruptions to  critical seasonal mixing but efforts to reduce salt runoff are starting to show improvement.

Scientists in recent years observed declining chloride concentrations and say the lake’s mixing regime has returned, improvements that align with more strategic salt use in Lake Placid and an overhaul of road and stormwater infrastructure.

“We are seeing the combined effects of best management practices and stormwater upgrades contributing to the recovery of Mirror Lake,” Brendan Wiltse, executive director of the Adirondack Watershed Institute, said during a presentation.  

Wiltse said researchers once measured salt concentrations several times federal action levels at places where stormwater runoff entered Mirror Lake. But those levels have fallen since Lake Placid installed four retention basins and redirected stormwater flows away from Mirror Lake.

Those infrastructure upgrades came shortly after village leaders, road crews and private businesses took strides to reduce salt use on the roads and sidewalks that encircle one of the most developed lake’s in the park.

“Part of the education included just putting the down the amount of salt that was needed,” said Lake Placid Mayor Art Devlin. “In the past it was very easy to say if 10 pounds of salt was good, 20 pounds had to be better.”

This problem is statewide

While road salt contamination has been a focus of Adirondack advocates and researchers for well over a decade, the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force made clear that water contamination levels are worse in the rest of the state.

The Hudson Riverkeeper, which focuses primarily on the Hudson Valley, recently analyzed water quality reports from communities in the Hudson’s massive watershed. Dan Shapley, the group’s director of advocacy, policy and planning, shared findings at the annual salt summit in Lake Placid.

Shapley said more than half of the public water supplies they examined reported sodium concentrations higher than 20 mg/l, a level at which people on low-salt diets are advised not to drink.

“I think that is evidence that we have let this problem get out from under us,” Shapley said. “We’ve already seen some public drinking water supplies significantly affected and increasingly so.”  

Shapley thanked Adirondack advocates, researchers and highway departments for highlighting the issue and forcing a broader statewide discussion about the impacts of salt pollution.

He also said his organization planned to “go to bat for” a legislative proposal that would establish panels tasked with oversight of implementing salt reduction strategies and development of salt use standards.  

Impacted residents need support

Dan Kelting, president of Paul Smith’s College and a longtime researcher of salt pollution, reiterated his findings that state roads are contributing to contamination of private wells.

Kelting shared a map of wells with high concentrations throughout the park, which included 109 residential drinking wells with sodium concentrations higher than 20 parts per million, a threshold considered harmful to people with certain medical conditions. 

“These are all over the park,” Kelting said. “This is regional contamination.” 

Kelting, who served on the Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, highlighted a recommendation from the task force to provide greater assistance to residents with salt contaminated wells. That proposal called for a more transparent process to make a contamination claim and garner support from state agencies to remediate the problem, including expanded, free well testing throughout the region.

“We need to give them the support network they need to get a solution, which is impossible for them to get on their own,” Kelting said.

Costs to businesses go beyond salt use

Society’s dependance on road salt in the winter costs more than just the $100 tons of salt that pile up in municipal sheds. 

Corrosion worsened by heavy salt use degrades public infrastructure like bridges and speeds up rusting on vehicles. In homes with contaminated water sources, corrosion can force the frequent replacement of faucets, washing machines, water filters and more. Even the carpets and floors at businesses are damaged by oversalting. 

Brett Lemcke, of Rochester-based RM Landscape, helps manage parking lots and sidewalks for grocery stores and large office buildings. He said some of their clients have highlighted overlooked damage caused by salt, like dirtying floors in a grocery store with salt brought in by carts from the parking lot. Commercial offices often have to replace carpets due to winter damage. Cleaning and repairing those floors comes at a cost.  

“It was eye opening to hear that,” he said. “This is bigger than just the parking lot.” 

Marie McMahon, a Wilmington-based snow removal contractor, said it is important to build trust with her clients to get buy-in for winter maintenance approaches that rely on less salt. She joined Lemcke on a panel of how private contractors are working to reduce salt use and how they communicate with their clients. 

McMahon said as she works to reduce salt use, she hopes to collect more data to show clients that they can achieve a similar result with less salt, reducing their costs. 

“I don’t have enough data to show the property owners that this will be the cost savings,” McMahon said. “I suspect that’s exactly what we will be able to show them.”