Community grapples with oversalting after winter storms

Each winter, the sidewalks and roads across Lehigh’s campus turn white — not just from snowfall, but from layers of road salt. 

While meant to prevent slipping, some students and environmental advocates say the excessive salting is doing more harm than good. 

Lehigh County, which ranked sixth out of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties for most tons of rock salt bought by municipalities in 2022, suffers from the lasting environmental impacts of oversalting long after winter ends.

Natalie Mack, ‘27, said she noticed and was bothered by the large amount of salt across campus this winter. 

“It gets everywhere,” Mack said. “It’s all over the ground. It’s messy. It gets stuck in my shoes. It gets all over my pants. It’s all over the Lehigh buildings.”

She also said she worries about the potential environmental implications of the roadsalt. 

Mary Rooney is the president of the Little Lehigh Watershed Stewards, a group of volunteers who protect the watershed located in Lehigh and Berks Counties. She said over-salting of roadways and parking lots is a growing environmental issue, as salt from roads and sidewalks flows into waterways with runoff. 

“The plants that are native around here aren’t salt plants,” Rooney said. “They are freshwater plants, so if they get repeatedly dosed with salt, it can kill them. It just depends on the concentration of salt in soil and water.” 

Salt is a sodium chloride, and Rooney said when salt enters waterways, it can’t exit the groundwater for 20 to 30 years. 

She also said the Little Lehigh Watershed Stewards conducted a study last summer on the watershed that runs through Blue Mountain to Allentown to measure chloride concentrations in streams. The study found higher chloride levels in urban areas, with Allentown’s Trout Creek reaching 250 milligrams of chloride per liter of water, Rooney said. 

She also said there are effects on human water quality, as 40% of road salt ends up in the groundwater.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Drinking Water Advisory, there isn’t a legally enforceable standard for sodium in drinking water. However, it suggests sodium concentration shouldn’t exceed 60 milligrams per liter of water in order to avoid changes in taste, and those concerned about sodium for medical reasons should not drink water which exceeds 20 milligrams per liter.  

Rooney said water treatment plants are designed to remove impurities like sediments and biological contaminants, such as fecal matter, to ensure water is safe to drink. 

However, she said water treatment plants don’t remove chlorides, such as salt, which remain in the water despite the purification process. An excessive amount of sodium chloride in water can have negative health impacts for people who drink it, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s advisory.

Rooney said part of the issue with over-salting is a lack of education of staff that put down the salt, as training in this area is not common practice. She said Lehigh should enroll its staff members in free training programs offered online, such as Smart Salt, hosted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, or virtual training by Wisconsin Salt Wise.

She also said staff should be trained in management practices and salt application rates.

Jodi Sulpizio, a natural resources educator for the Pennsylvania State University Extension in York County, said there are ways to reduce salt usage and help water quality.

Sulpizio said the Penn State Extension is doing research on chlorides found in water streams nearby by putting monitors in the water to collect data, and the research team is looking to show the data to places with large parking lots to spread awareness.

She also said she’s unaware of any changes made on Penn State’s main campus or the York extension to reduce salt usage. However, Sulpizio said, she hopes the data from the stream monitors will highlight over-salting and lead to positive changes.

Some alternatives to excessive salting, like shoveling snow earlier, using sand or cat litter for traction and reusing salt, can help prevent runoff, she said. Sulpizio also recommended using mats on steps and wearing proper footwear to avoid the need for an immense amount of salt and to prevent slipping. 

Sulpizio said salt shouldn’t be completely eliminated. Instead, she said it should be used sparingly, as a small amount can be just as effective. 

“If one granule can melt three inches around it, you don’t have to put gobs out there every snowstorm,” Sulpizio said.

Nancy Trainer, Lehigh’s associate vice president for facilities and campus planning, said the university is aware of the environmental concerns regarding oversalting.

“It is something we are very aware of — the implications on the local plants and on the water,” Trainer said. “We do work to figure out how to mitigate that while still providing safe entry.”

Over the past six years, she said, Lehigh has purchased between 480 and 1,200 tons of bulk salt annually.

She also said Lehigh’s facilities staff takes steps to mitigate oversalting by storing salt piles in covered sheds, calibrating equipment to prevent overapplication and adjusting application rates based on weather conditions. 

The facilities staff is also actively exploring further improvements to their salting practice, Trainer said, such as snow removal tactics and evaluating campus needs to ensure safety without over-salting. They’ve been experimenting with a product called Entry, which is an alternative to traditional road salt, and is appropriate for pedestrian areas as well, she said.

“​​Entry is chloride-free,” Trainer said. “It’s Green Seal Certified, and it’s a spray applicant. So, we’re trying that on some sidewalks. It is not perfect everywhere.”

Beth Norman, an Earth and environmental science professor at Lehigh, teaches a course titled “Imperiled Freshwaters.” She said oversalting has recently been recognized as an emerging environmental issue within the freshwater ecology community.

Norman also said she encourages Lehigh students to spread awareness of oversalting to the university’s administration, and she encourages all people to consider what they’re applying to landscapes and putting in watersheds. 

“These things don’t just go away,” Norman said. “They usually end up somewhere, and oftentimes they’re drained into our waters.”