Budget hearing raises questions about state’s progress reducing road salt pollution

DOT commissioner and AdkAction differ on views of progress so far

By Gwendolyn Craig

The state Department of Transportation is following best practices to reduce road salt use, its commissioner told lawmakers on Thursday, but an Adirondack Park organization said DOT isn’t doing enough and praised local highway departments instead for their efforts.

In a 2019 study of 500 water wells in the Adirondack Park, the Adirondack Watershed Institute at Paul Smith’s College found 64% had more sodium than the acceptable levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Consuming too much salt can lead to negative health impacts like hypertension, heart and kidney disease and stroke.

Sawyer Bailey, executive director of the nonprofit organization AdkAction, said some of the wells with the worst contamination were downslope of state highways. She called the Adirondack Park the “canary in the coal mine” for a salt contamination problem that is statewide.

But state legislators at a transportation hearing on Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed $252 billion budget heard somewhat differing accounts of DOT’s progress toward reducing road salt from Bailey and Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez.

State Sen. Liz Kreuger, a Manhattan Democrat and chair of the Senate’s Finance Committee, asked Dominguez about runoff from state highways and what was being done.

Dominguez referenced The Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force, which after a series of delays, released a report in the fall of 2023 including best management practices for keeping too much sodium chloride off roads.

The recommendations, Dominguez said, were “really critical.” DOT has been executing them, she said. For example, DOT is using a tool to calibrate how much salt it is applying and where.

But the commissioner said DOT was focusing efforts on educating local highway departments “to make sure they’re addressing … some of those best practices.”

Bailey later testified before lawmakers, asking that of the $156 million the governor has proposed for snow and ice management, to set aside funds to implement the recommendations in the Adirondack Road Salt Task Force Report. AdkAction would particularly like to see the use of live-edge snowplows, salt brine spreaders, and the use of more weather tracking equipment.

State Assemblyman William Magnarelli, chair of the transportation committee and a Democrat from Onondaga County, said he’d heard there were road salt reduction studies and that DOT was implementing some of the best practices.

“Are you saying they’re not?” he asked Bailey.

“I don’t believe the recommendations are being implemented to their fullest extent,” Bailey said. “Those of you who drive around the Adirondack Park have seen plenty of plows dropping salt when there’s no precipitation coming down and no snow pack on the road. Our communities see it plain and clear, particularly our local county highway road managers, who are doing their part to reduce salt.”

In written testimony, Sawyer pointed to a network of more than two dozen North Country town and county highway departments, who have successfully reduced their road salt and sand use by pre-treating roads with salt brine and transitioning to sharper plow blades. As a result, there is less salt use, cost-savings for local governments and maintained road safety, she said.

Before lawmakers, Sawyer said it would take time for a larger institution like the DOT to make changes, but said there was plenty more it could do, starting this year.

Magnarelli requested a meeting with AdkAction to estimate a value on implementing some of the management practices.

MaryJane Shimsky, a Democratic assembly member from Westchester County, expressed support for tackling road safety with other options than road salt.

Sawyer estimated that the DOT could reduce its road salt use by 20% in one year “through material spending reductions in a single winter if given the opportunity to be entrepreneurial. From there, a 50% reduction of road salt use and road salt pollution can be achieved.”

AdkAction also called on lawmakers to pass a law that would guide the implementation of the task force’s report and create a “salt czar” position in the governor’s office. 

Top photo: State road signs indicate a portion of Route 86 in Wilmington is part of a salt-reduction program, as photographed in 2019. Photo by Mike Lynch