The summit is scheduled to run from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 1 at the Lake Placid Conference Center, which is managed by the state Olympic Regional Development Authority. The event is principally organized by the Lake George Association.

The summit focuses on reducing salt use when treating roads and surfaces throughout the winter, due to the harmful effects of salt on the ecology of waterbodies and public health when it contaminates drinking water at high enough levels. It’s the first time in five years that the ACRSS is being held in Lake Placid, according to Chris Navitsky, who serves as the Lake George Waterkeeper for the LGA. He said ORDA helped to make that possible.

“We’re excited to bring it back to Lake Placid for the first time since 2019,” he said. “ORDA is working with us to reduce the costs for the conference center as we’re a not-for-profit organization and we’re offering the event to everyone interested for free.”

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Headliners

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The summit will feature “speakers, presentations, live demos, and panel discussions with experts in the field, municipal leaders, politicians and vendors dedicated to the reduction of winter road salt use,” according to its website.

Navitsky said the keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Dan Kelting, who serves as the current president of Paul Smith’s College. “We’re very excited about that, as Dan’s been heavily involved (with salt reduction) over the years,” he said.

“On the science side, we’re also excited to have a speaker from Riverkeepers (an environmental organization that works to protect the Hudson River) coming up to talk about drinking water contamination. We’re also very much looking forward to Dr. Brendan Wiltse presenting his research on Mirror Lake right there in town,” Navitsky said.

He added that the event will also have a private contractor panel in the afternoon.

“We’ve been very successful at getting the municipalities and counties aboard but it’s said that half of the road salt contamination, nationally, comes from private property, according to the Snow and Ice Management Association,” he said. “Obviously, there’s less development here in the Adirondacks, but you still have major private interests across the park, particularly in Lake Placid and Lake George where we do have large resorts and bigger private parking lots. We want to work with the private sector and hopefully get them on board with reduction efforts.”

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Salt’s effects

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Wiltse, who serves as the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute executive director, said salt use in the Adirondacks has been extensively studied.

“The Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute has been working on this issue for over a decade. We’ve documented widespread salinization of both our surface and ground waters in the park,” he said.

Elevated concentrations of salt in local lakes or surface water can harm the food chain.

“Zooplankton, which are a small organism in the middle of the aquatic food web, tend to have their populations diminished by salt,” he said. “They’re eating phytoplankton and are being eaten by small fish. A reduction in their numbers can have adverse effects both above and below their position in the chain.”

Increased salt can also potentially help harmful invaders.

“There’s some evidence that increased salt is making the lakes more hospitable to certain invasive species and harmful algal blooms, but more scientific research is needed to reach a conclusive answer on that,” he said.

The AWI has examined salt’s impacts on the groundwater, which exists in springs and aquifers beneath the Earth’s surface, after some unusual readings in streams being monitored.

“We were noticing that in the summer, many months after salt had been applied to the watershed, we would have persistently high chloride concentrations in our steams,” he said. “At that time of year, our streams are primarily fed by shallow groundwater as any precipitation is primarily being taken up by vegetation.”

What appears in streams is reflective of what is in the groundwater.

“That led us to look at private wells, and we found widespread groundwater salinization,” he said. “In some cases, concentrations that are high enough to impact public health, and are obviously a concern for folks dealing with contaminated wells.”

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Local lakes hit hard

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Mirror Lake, Lake Colby and the Cascade Lakes have been hit particularly hard by salt, given their proximate location to highways and development.

“Mirror Lake had a very unique phenomenon going on for many years where the salt concentrations coming into the lake were so high that the water was much more dense than the water already in the lake,” Wiltse said. “That salt would then accumulate at the lake’s bottom and prevent the lake from properly mixing, or turning over, in the spring. That impacted the oxygen levels in the bottom waters of the lake, which is important for cold-water fish, like lake trout.”

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Mirror Lake success

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Mirror Lake is an encouraging example of what can happen when best practices are implemented, according to Wiltse.

“The state DOT has a small portion of road that they maintain in that watershed (Main Street), but the town of North Elba and village of Lake Placid have many miles of roads around the lake that they maintain,” he said. “So, even though they are applying salt at a lower rate than the state, just by the volume of roads that they’re maintaining, they’re going to have a much larger impact on the salt going into Mirror Lake.”

This has created a serious situation for Mirror Lake’s ecological health.

“The salt inputs were coming directly to the lake through a stormwater system that literally piped the water from the street to the lake,” Wiltse said. “The village of Lake Placid has spent millions of dollars to upgrade Main Street’s infrastructure. Part of that was stormwater changes. That stormwater is now going into underground infiltration basins and not going directly to the lake. That immediately shut off the very high concentrations of salt that were making it to the lake.”

The rebound came quickly.

“That was a very significant change and Mirror Lake responded almost immediately to that,” Wiltse said. “The turnover process of the lake was restored very quickly after the improvements. Now, we’re just seeing the salt concentrations in Mirror Lake continue to march downward. It’s still going to be years for the lake to reach a new equilibrium with the salt use that is occurring, but it’s a success story that a lot of people worked hard for and can be proud of.”

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Doing our parts

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Navitsky said when it comes to reducing the harmful effects of heavy salt use, seemingly small actions at the individual level can make a big difference.

“Individuals can take the same practices that we talk to the state, municipalities and businesses about and apply them to your property,” he said. “Keep the snow from building up, either mechanically or with a shovel, by getting to it as soon as you can, especially before a thaw. That helps prevent a lot of the ice from forming that people might be inclined to then treat with salt.”

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Reserve your spot

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People are encouraged to sign up by Friday, Sept. 27, so organizers can provide accurate attendance numbers to ORDA, but people won’t be turned away if they forget to register or have a late schedule opening.

The sign-up link for the Regional Salt Summit and additional event information can be found at tinyurl.com/48xfmxtf.