Connect how salt practices in the Hudson River watershed impact the salinity of local streams. Session from a management-based forum hosted by the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies about the impact of road salt on natural areas and drinking water supplies, with a focus on successful salt reduction strategies being used regionally and nationally. Presenter: Eli Dueker, Assistant Professor of Biology and Environmental and Urban Studies, Bard College.

1. M. Elias Dueker
Assistant Professor
Biology &
Environmental and
Urban Studies
Bard College
Connecting Salt
Practices with Salt in
Streams Cary Institute Salt Forum, 2/13/18

2. Why me?
• Biological Oceanographer by training
• Focusing on microbial connections between
water and air quality
• Salts can profoundly change microbial
communities in streams
• My philosophy:
water science + water communities =
better science and better communities

3. • Lead contamination of drinking water due
to high salt content of Flint River (source) --
6-12,000 children exposed to harmful levels
• Lesser known: aerosolization implications
• CDC: Legionnaire's outbreak "very large, one
of the largest we know of in the past decade
and community-wide, and in our opinion
and experience it needs a comprehensive
investigation."
• Lead, carcinogen exposure through inhalation
(showers)
Why salt?

4. The "triangle" of salts management
• Community of users have certain expectations.
• Are these expectations sustainable?
• Do we need to shift culture to shift practices?
• How do we do this?

5. The "triangle" of salts management
• Need a shared forum -- citizen science?

6. The "triangle" of salts management
• Organized communities are better equipped to
advocate for shared resource management
• Organized communities can collectively shift
culture, including their own salting practices

7. The "triangle" of salts management
• Science informed by community interest and
fueled by community participation will help to
shift cultural norms
• Communities ask the best scientific questions,
bring creativity to the process

8. The "triangle" of salts management
• Supported by better science that is widely
understood by (and performed by) the
community, decisionmakers can make real shifts
in salts application and management

9. Some Examples

10. •
Saw Kill Watershed Community
Are watersheds a new way to think about neighborhoods?
--Bob Wills, Dutchess County

11. Current Community Questions:
1. Is nutrient loading an issue on the waterway?
2. Are leaky septic tanks contaminating the
waterway and aquifer?
3. How do we better manage floodwaters
during extreme weather events?
4. Are road salts a problem for our waterway
and/or drinking water?
5. Is our drinking water protected sufficiently?

12. • Long history of community/science on the
Saw Kill (as early as 1976) and connection
with Bard College resources
Citizen/Community Science

13. • Students and community members digitized
and analyzed these data (1976-1982) to begin
to answer the road salts question
Citizen/Community Science: baseline

14. Citizen/Community Science: the field

15. Bard Water Lab: Connecting Water
Communites with Water Science

16. Findings: salts seasonally variable
2015-2017

17. Findings: sewage effluent = salt source?
2015-2017

18. The "triangle" of salts management
• We created the shared forum
• We are conducting science (but limited scale)
• How do we move this into answers, beyond
"snapshots"?

19. •
THuRST Network
The Hudson River
Subwatershed &
Tributary (THuRST)
network is a partnership
of Colleges, Universities,
and research institutions
working in their
respective, local
watersheds.

20. •
THuRST Salts Project
The Hudson River
Subwatershed &
Tributary (THuRST)
network is a partnership
of Colleges, Universities,
and research institutions
working in their
respective, local
watersheds.
• Allowing us to expand scope,
compare salt practices
• Higher resolution data for salt
modeling/budgeting

21. • Question: How do land use and watershed structure
control delivery of winter road salt to the stream
channel network, and ultimately, the Hudson River?
• Methods: collecting and analyzing water quality data
(conductivity, flow), performing watershed-level GIS analyses.
Same methodology used across watersheds.
• Project components:
• Characterize Hudson subwatersheds and tributaries through
geospatial analyses and field surveys.
• Analyze conductivity data to compute salt budgets, identify
hotspots, and examine spatial and temporal variability.
• Use the results to help watershed managers identify and
follow best management practices.
THuRST Salts Project

22. Salts Project Preliminary Data
• Conductivity loggers
capture precipitation
events and salt
"flushes"

23. Salts Project Preliminary Data
• Student event-based
research: practice
of salting parking lot
results in what appears
to be salt front moving
through contructed
wetland
• Conducting more
event-based studies to
confirm.....

24. Salt s Project Next Steps
• Connecting conductivity
logger data with
geospatial analyses to
better assess road salt
influences
• Modeling salt
mobilization where
possible
• Communicating
findings to watershed
communities,
decisionmakers

25. The "triangle" -- will it work?
• Will this result in better community, better science,
better decisions about salts?
• What more needs to happen to support this?

26. Questions?
Eli Dueker, edueker@bard.edu
Thank You!
SALTS PROJECT COLLABORATORS
Robyn Smyth, Bard College
Kate Meierdiercks, Siena College
THuRST members: Siena College, Bard College,
Cary Institute, Vassar, Marist, Cornell, SUNY
Cobleskill, Pace
Bard Water Lab
Clara Woolner, Lab Manager
Saw Kill Watershed Community
Karen Schneller-McDonald, Chair
STUDENT CONTRIBUTORS
Chris Hulbert, Bard College
Aidan Galloway, Bard College
Tierney Weymueller, Bard College
Nicole Smith, Siena College
Brian Donahoo, Siena College
Kirsten Jedd, Siena College
Funding: Environmental Protection Fund
(DEC), Hudson River Foundation