CLEVELAND, Ohio – When it came to clearing roads during Winter Storm Fern, some local officials said they would treat main arteries and critical spots with road salt, while leaving side streets to the plows.

With dwindling salt supplies, they didn’t have much of a choice. But was that such a bad thing?

Amy Roskilly doesn’t think so. The communications manager for the Cuyahoga Soil & Water Conservation District was heartened to hear cities would be selective. She knows the damage road salt – more specifically sodium chloride – can do to ecosystems and even human drinking water.

She believes that not every street needs to be cleared down to the pavement.

“I don’t need my road salted,” said Roskilly, who lives off a main drag on Cleveland’s West Side. “I just need it plowed.”

Cautious driving can remedy some of the concerns, she said, and while the priority should always be keeping people safe, there are other factors to consider when salting roads, including the impact on the environment.

Last year, a volunteer with Salt Watch, an initiative of the Izaak Walton League of America, tested Euclid Creek near Acacia Reservation in Lyndhurst and got a reading of 3,246 parts per million, according to the district. Anything over 230 parts per million is considered toxic.

And about 10 years ago, Case Western Reserve biology professor Mike Benard led a team that tested the effect of salt on wood frogs. They created artificial outdoor ponds and exposed tadpoles to a relatively low amount of road salt. The youngsters appeared fine until they become froglets and were moved to outdoor cages, where they then died at a much faster rate than a control group, Benard said.

Growing concerns

Roskilly and Benard are two of the many voices warning about the ecological impact of salt used to melt ice and snow.

Massive amounts of sodium chloride are being applied to streets, highways, sidewalks and parking lots during snowy winters, usually at amounts far greater than what’s needed.

For example, a Solo cup filled with sodium chloride should be enough to adequately treat a typical two-car driveway that’s about 20 feet long, said William Hintz, an assistant professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of Toledo.

Yet, people overdo it all the time.

A group called Wisconsin Salt Wise advises municipalities and private contractors on best practices, and some have reduced their salt use by 30 to 80 percent, said program manager Allison Madison.

“Those are reductions without any impact to public safety,” she said.

The first step is to make sure equipment is properly calibrated, so operators don’t have to guess how much salt they are dropping. Another is to use sensors that measure pavement temperature. The warmer the road, the less salt is needed. And a third is to switch to liquid brine. It adheres much better to the roadway than rock salt, which can bounce off into a gutter or be blown away.

Cleveland Heights Councilwoman Gail Larson said her city has focused on salting main arteries, while also using brine.

Larson admits she is biased coming from Minnesota where she learned to drive in the snow. But in her opinion, a plowed street can suffice “if you use caution.”

Alternatives are expensive

Researchers are hard at work trying to find more environmentally friendly alternatives to salt, said Andy Erickson, research manager at the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory.

“It’s a huge industry because road salt is being applied everywhere,” he said.

But the cost of those alternatives is a barrier.

Sodium chloride, the most common version of road salt, is cheap and available, he said, while more environmentally friendly alternatives can cost as much as 10 to 20 times more.

Even brine, which cuts actual salt use in half, can be prohibitive because of the cost to acquire mixing equipment and install nozzles on the trucks, Erickson said.

Right now, the only incentive for governments to change their methods are the environmental benefits, Erickson said.

Who’s doing what

Several states have taken proactive steps to reduce salt use, Erickson said, including in New Hampshire, where a property owner’s liability from slips and falls is limited if whoever applied the salt is properly trained.

It’s provided a huge incentive for private contractors and municipalities to reduce the amount of salt they put down, Erickson said.

And a number of states and localities attend symposiums to share ideas and best practices.

“A lot of them are talking to each other,” Erickson said. “They’re doing a lot of work in Canada, too.”

One step taken in several states, including Minnesota, Illinois, Vermont and Virginia, is to limit the amount of chloride allowed in waterways, he said.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency recognizes that “heavy salt runoff is toxic to aquatic life and can also pollute drinking water sources, leading to higher treatment costs and infrastructure corrosion,” a spokesman said.

But Ohio does not have any state laws governing when or how salt or other de-icing agents are applied to roads or other surfaces, according to the agency.

The Ohio Department of Transportation and local governments in urban areas are required to keep their salt stockpiles covered, and the state provides grants to municipalities looking to reduce the amount of road salt they use through its Chloride Reduction program.

While the grants are helpful, Hintz said, he believes the state could do more by treating salt as the pollutant it is and by hiring a coordinator to work with the public and private sectors.

“We got to get on it,” he said, “We don’t have a lot of time to waste and talk about it anymore.”