salt brine from county roads

what impact does all of the salt we treat the roads with have on creeks and small streams?

Funny, I was just wondering the same thing last week. I assume that not all salt makes it to the streams, but the state hwy dept salts the roads heavily here.

Lots of literature on the effects of road salt on stream organisms, from macroinverts, to fish, to frogs.

It's not good. I just saw a talk on it in AFS in Nashville in 2009. It does what is expected and causes salt levels to rise killing off more sensitive fish and making streams habitable for a few hardy generalists. That's the broad-stroke answer. Luckily, it's not a problem where I am. We just shut down and don't drive. I haven't worked the past two days because the State of Louisiana is all boarded up down here. The marshes and streams will be no saltier than they were a week ago when this weather is over...

You might find something in google scholar with a search like "road salt stream fish" or something like that.

There has been concerns in the past about this and most of Ontario now exclusively uses sand instead of salt for roads. We're used to the snow though.

It's not good. I just saw a talk on it in AFS in Nashville in 2009. It does what is expected and causes salt levels to rise killing off more sensitive fish and making streams habitable for a few hardy generalists. That's the broad-stroke answer.

I wonder if salmonoids are affected or not. Usually most environmental changes effect them strongly, but many salmonoids have sea run forms that tolerate salt naturally as well.

Lot's of the more progressive towns around here won't use salt anymore or use it very sparingly and only on troublsum hills and curves etc.
Also, it's very expensive so this year with the record snows, towns that normally use it are holding back because their winter snow budget is already blown out.

Good for the environment no doubt, but road conditions this winter have been a nightmare with record number of accidents and at least two vehicles going off bridges.

BTW, I don't know if they still do but the Army used to use pure crystal rock salt instead of whatever the gray stuff most towns use. It was cool, you could pick up off the road big chunks of crystal totally clear as glass. I had one in a window for a few years and it gradually just shrank and changed shape as it reacted with invisible moisture in the air.

There's a USGS report last year on the subject. Basically the first melt pulse after extensive salting can be quite concentrated and toxic. Runoff pulses are a fairly common phenomenon whether it's "acid snow", road salt, road oils, car wash detergents, or agricultural chemicals. A stream might be a pretty nice place for 364 days a year, but what matters is the short term events -- first snow melt, first rain pulse of the fall in California etc.

News article: http://www.usgs.gov/...9&from=rss_home

Publication: http://pubs.acs.org/....1021/es101333u

Here's the abstract:

A new perspective on the severity of aquatic toxicity impact of road salt was gained by a focused research effort directed at winter runoff periods. Dramatic impacts were observed on local, regional, and national scales. Locally, samples from 7 of 13 Milwaukee, Wisconsin area streams exhibited toxicity in Ceriodaphnia dubia and Pimephales promelas bioassays during road-salt runoff. Another Milwaukee stream was sampled from 1996 to 2008 with 72% of 37 samples exhibiting toxicity in chronic bioassays and 43% in acute bioassays. The maximum chloride concentration was 7730 mg/L. Regionally, in southeast Wisconsin, continuous specific conductance was monitored as a chloride surrogate in 11 watersheds with urban land use from 6.0 to 100%. Elevated specific conductance was observed between November and April at all sites, with continuing effects between May and October at sites with the highest specific conductance. Specific conductance was measured as high as 30 800 μS/cm (Cl ) 11 200 mg/L). Chloride concentrations exceeded U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) acute (860 mg/L) and chronic (230 mg/L) water-quality criteria at 55 and 100% of monitored sites, respectively. Nationally, U.S. Geological Survey historical data were examined for 13 northern and 4 southern metropolitan areas. Chloride concentrations exceeded USEPA water-quality criteria at 55% (chronic) and 25% (acute) of the 168 monitoring locations in northern metropolitan areas from November to April. Only 16% (chronic) and 1% (acute) of sites exceeded criteria from May to October. At southern sites, very few samples exceeded chronic water quality criteria, and no samples exceeded acute criteria.

Here is another paper relevant to this discussion as it pertains to vernal pools. From the director of my lab at VCU:

link to article:
Abstract:IMPACTS OF ROAD DEICING SALT ON THE DEMOGRAPHY OF VERNAL POOL-BREEDING AMPHIBIANS

Deicing agents, primarily road salt, are applied to roads in 26 states in the United States and in a number of European countries, yet the scale of impacts of road salt on aquatic organisms remains largely under-studied. The issue is germane to amphibian conservation because both adult and larval amphibians are known to be particularly sensitive to changes in their osmolar environments. In this study, we combined survey, experimental, and demographic modeling approaches to evaluate the possible effects of road salt on two common vernal-pond-breeding amphibian species, the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) and the wood frog (Rana sylvatica). We found that in the Adirondack Mountain Region of New York (USA), road salt traveled up to 172 m from the highway into wetlands. Surveys showed that egg mass densities of spotted salamanders (A. maculatum) and wood frogs (R. sylvatica) were two times higher in forest pools than roadside pools, but this pattern was better explained by road proximity than by increased salinity. Experiments demonstrated that embryonic and larval survival were reduced at moderate (500 μS) and high conductivities (3000 μS) in A. maculatum and at high conductivities in R. sylvatica. Demographic models suggest that such egg and larval stage effects of salt may have important impacts on populations near roads, particularly in the case of A. maculatum, for which salt exposure may lead to local extinction. For both species, the effect of road salt was dependent upon the strength of larval density dependence and declined rapidly with distance from the roadside, with the greatest negative effects being limited to within 50 m. Based on this evidence, we argue that efforts to protect local populations of A. maculatum and R. sylvatica in roadside wetlands should, in part, be aimed at reducing application of road salt near wetlands with high conductivity levels.

There was recently an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer about the effects road salts are having on the roadside plant species. The article even indicated that certain species of plants that are usually only found in marine environments are growing along the roads in Ohio after being brought in by seeds on vehicles. If the salt can change the environment around the roads that much I would imagine there would have to be some effect on waterways near these heavily salted roads

As far as fish it odd NACL is considered the aspirin of aquaculture and we routinely add it to our fish tanks and hauling water to reduce osmotic stress. I keep a 0.2 percent solution constant in my bluegill and yellow perch tanks with no problems whatsoever. That's 2 parts per thousand or 2000 mg/l. The bacteria in the tanks has non problem with it either, but fish parasites do.

Edited by az9, 06 February 2011 - 10:26 PM.

As far as fish it odd NACL is considered the aspirin of aquaculture and we routinely add it to our fish tanks and hauling water to reduce osmotic stress. I keep a 0.2 percent solution constant in my bluegill and yellow perch tanks with no problems whatsoever. That's 2 parts per thousand or 2000 mg/l. The bacteria in the tanks has non problem with it either, but fish parasites do.

Generally speaking I think the fish deal with the road salt pretty well. It seems amphibians are hardest hit. Probably inverts too but they aren't as visible.
I think the worse thing is the big pulse that invades the habitat after a large thaw.

As far as fish it odd NACL is considered the aspirin of aquaculture and we routinely add it to our fish tanks and hauling water to reduce osmotic stress. I keep a 0.2 percent solution constant in my bluegill and yellow perch tanks with no problems whatsoever. That's 2 parts per thousand or 2000 mg/l. The bacteria in the tanks has non problem with it either, but fish parasites do.

Found this which references the sensitivity of different fish (some much more sensitive than others) -- and the impact on the rest of the food chain, which might be the most significant (if indirect) impact on fish. Potassium salts also can also cause eutrophication where potassium is limiting.

http://www.newyorkwa...ENTANIMPACT.cfm

"Reports of chloride concentrations in highway runoff run as high as 19,135 mg/l. Salt tolerance of fishes ranges from 400 to 30,000 mg/l, greater than the salt concentration of seawater. A seven-day exposure of 1,000 mg/l is lethal to rainbow trout (NRC, 1991). While an estimated 10% of aquatic species will exceed their critical tolerance values for chloride with prolonged exposure to concentrations above 220 mg/l, many of the macroinvertebrates upon which the more tolerant species feed might exhibit lower tolerances. Stream studies in northern New York revealed that benthic diversity decreases as salinity increases and dominance of salt-tolerant invertebrates is synchronous with periods of road-salt application. Salinity stresses the periphyton community upon which benthic grazers forage and inhibits microbial processing of leaf litter (EC, 2000). Reduction of primary productivity causes repercussions at the top of the food chain in addition to the stress salinity imposes on the organisms themselves. The presence of salt in aquatic ecosystems also releases toxic metals from sediment into the water column and impairs distribution and cycling of oxygen and nutrients."

I haven't done much reading on it (OK, practically none), but I have long suspected that road salt was responsible for inland (freshwater system) Phragmites invasions. These seem to be more pervasive in northern states, which, perhaps not coincidentally, use more salt than more southern states. I would expect that it can have quite the impact on plant communities. There are probably a good number of papers out there; I just haven't gone looking.

Sand isn't exactly a cure-all either - can deposit in the waterways and fill wetlands if not managed carefully. Cleaning out catch basins helps, but only in urban areas that have them!

Oh yeah, Laura, go to Google Scholar and put in "phragmites road salt". It's absolutely awful here in northern Ohio and to some extent, southern Michigan. Ohio has been second to none in road salt application. They've backed off with the recent downturn in our economic situation, but it's still pretty intense.

But this is one that I just don't have a clear answer in my head. As Mike pointed out, if we don't do something with the roads, people die - and that's not anyway to gain momentum for doing the "green" thing. I guess it's just argument for concentrated development (and thus concentrated impacts) as resources dwindle, and tire chains for all the rest

Todd

Oh yeah, Laura, go to Google Scholar and put in "phragmites road salt". It's absolutely awful here in northern Ohio and to some extent, southern Michigan. Ohio has been second to none in road salt application. They've backed off with the recent downturn in our economic situation, but it's still pretty intense.

But this is one that I just don't have a clear answer in my head. As Mike pointed out, if we don't do something with the roads, people die - and that's not anyway to gain momentum for doing the "green" thing. I guess it's just argument for concentrated development (and thus concentrated impacts) as resources dwindle, and tire chains for all the rest

Todd

thank you to all for the time to reply.
next time i have a quick ? i will first do a little research
i never thought something as simple as salt would have such a wide impact on our states ecosystems.

It was a great question Tony, and one most folks don't give much though to - they just want the snow and ice out of the way, and I can't blame them... But there's got to be a better way to deal with poor conditions than dumping salt everywhere like Ohio does. If you have any trouble getting to any sources, just let me know the citation. I'd be glad to round anything up for you.

Todd