Sidewalk Salt in Rivers: a Salient Issue for River Conservation

To provide for public safety, communities across America pour at least 13 million tons of salt and other de-icing materials on roads and highways each winter (U.S. EPA, 1999)*.  Regular salt, or sodium chloride (NaCl) is the choice de-icing material used on roads due to its availability and inexpensive cost.  Unfortunately, using regular salt has its costs.

Aside from corroded car exteriors and damaged roadside vegetation, heavily salinated snowmelt may harm local water bodies.  Illinois' freshwater aquatic plants, aquatic macro-invertebrates, and freshwater fish not tolerant to salinity are the ones typically affected.  Salinated snowmelt may also taint groundwater and surface water, creating a possible health risk for those with heart disease.  Fortunately, the safety of your driveway and sidewalk does not have to compete with the health of our local streams.  By switching to de-icing alternatives and practicing "anti-icing" techniques, you can minimize salt loads entering into your sewers and streams.

Alternatives of NaCl

Less corrosive materials exist for homeowners to use to melt driveway and sidewalk ice.  Alternatives include

• liquid magnesium chloride,
• calcium chloride,
• potassium chloride,
• calcium magnesium acetate, and
• potassium acetate.

If replacing regular salt is not cost effective for you, consider creating a mix between the two.  Many highways are currently treated with mixes of regular salt with salt alternatives to minimize salt's effect on the environment and to de-ice roads more effectively.  (Regular salt is not effective at temperatures below 10 degrees F).  Not all alternatives are made equal.  Some perform better than others, while others are less corrosive.  Potassium acetate seems to be the better substitute overall, both for its effectiveness and for its environmentally benign properties.

Where can you buy these alternatives?

Your local hardware store should carry at least one of these alternatives.  Some stores that carry these alternatives include Lowe's, Menards, and Home Depot.  They be sold under names such as Zero Ice Melt Jug, Vaporizer, Ace Hardware's salt mix, Quick Joe's Polar Express Ice Melt, Ice Away, Hydro-melt, and many others.

What else can you do?

"Anti-icing" is another step to take to further decrease the amount salt you use.  Anti-icing is performed before a storm starts.  Simply put, de-icers typically used after snow storms are applied prior to storms.  Anti-icing prevents snow that falls onto driveways and sidewalks from becoming ice, requiring less salt to be used overall.  In the end, anti-icing also decreases the amount of work you need to keep your sidewalk and driveway slip-free.

* U.S. EPA's Nonpoint Source News