Road Salt: Reduce your Use!

Winter is here once again and with that, a lot of ice and SALT. Salt and other de-icers are important products we use to keep our roadways and sidewalks safe, but they are also harming our Rouge River and the life in it. Just like everything else, that salty water makes its way – directly or indirectly through storm drains – to the river. 

How Do De-Icers Affect the River?

Approximately 14 million tons of salt are applied every year in North America!

• De-icing salt doesn’t just stay on our driveways! As the snow and ice melts, that salty water flows to the nearest creek, stream, and eventually into our Rouge River. 
• All along the way, that salty water harms the life in our ecosystem, especially in our waterways. It hurts or kills the bugs in the water and the fish that eat the bugs. These are not salt-water fish!
• “Pet-friendly” de-icing products harm our waterways, too!

Our Mission

Our Friends of the Rouge monitoring team has been testing for salt (chloride) levels since 2020. The 2022 FOTR Fall Bug Hunt report was featured in the local news, where we found that seven sites had toxic chloride levels. Chloride de-icing salts, including pet-friendly salts, harm or kill important aquatic life in our Rouge River – bugs and fish both.

It’s our hope that chloride monitoring, identification, and elimination of chloride sources throughout the Rouge River Watershed will all lead to long term water quality improvements.

What Can YOU Do?

• We know we have to use some de-icers to keep our roadways safe to drive. But any time we can REDUCE THE USE of salt, we’re helping to keep our waterways healthy too!
  1. Remove the snow before it forms ice
  2. Sprinkle inexpensive clay kitty litter instead of salt for traction
  3. Spray or sprinkle lightly from a watering can: a mixture of half vinegar, half water to melt the ice
  4. If you do use de-icers, sweep up the excess to keep it out of our river!

Check Out Izaak Walton League of America

• We collaborate with Izaak Walton League of America for our Salt Watch. Go onto their website for more!
  • Start a Salt Watch Campaign in your community
  • Chloride and Infrastructure Fact Sheet
  • Chloride in Drinking Water

Learn More

• For a deeper dive into the subject, check out the following links:
  • Road Salt and Eco-Friendly Alternatives With Sally Petrella from Friends of the Rouge!
  • “In 2013, an estimated 14 million tons of salt were used for deicing roads in North America.” Salinisation of rivers: an urgent ecological issue
  • Low-Cost Homemade De-Icer- It’s easy and works! Start at 1:12 for the recipe, then go to 7:58 for the results (We at Friends of the Rouge haven’t tested this yet- If you do, let us know how it works for you!)
  • ASK US ANYTHING – What alternatives for road salt are being tested? The future of de-icing for municipalities, departments of transportation, and others?