CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – Roads, driveways, and sidewalks across the Commonwealth have been treated with road salts over the past week to melt ice and prevent slippery surfaces. However, experts say that salt can hurt the environment and regional waterways.

“The impacts run the gamut from financial and infrastructure to public health, all the way to environmental health and everything in between,” said Samantha Puckett, clean water program director for the Izaak Walton League of America.

Wildlife, plants, waterways, and more can all see a negative impact from road salts, according to Puckett.

“A lot of folks don’t realize because it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind when, you know, there’s a snow melt or a rain after a snow event and the salt washes away. It does end up in our waterways,” Puckett said.

Even when that salt disappears from roadways, Puckett said it sticks around, lingering in waterways and building up over time.

“We’ll get a thaw, the road salt levels in our waterways will spike really, really high and then it’ll level out, but it won’t get back down to that baseline,” Puckett said. “Typically, by the time it enters our waterways and ends up in our larger waterways that are usually our drinking water intake, it’ll be diluted from all different sources of water coming in.”

Puckett says increases in chloride in water from road salts typically will not impact the average person. But spreading salt out and using less on surfaces can lessen salt build-up across the region.

“This is the amount of salt, 12 ounces that you should use on a 20-foot driveway. If you’re walking down a sidewalk and you can hear the salt crunch beneath your feet, it’s already way too much salt and it’s not actually providing any more melting power than that 12-ounce mug for 10 sidewalk squares would,” Puckett said.

Puckett said the Izaak Walton League of America provides test kits, and a database, for people to monitor streams, lakes, ponds, and waterways across the country for salt pollution.

“We would love for folks to contribute to that to help us kind of build a clearer picture of how this pollution is affecting anyone across the country,” Puckett said.

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