SARANAC LAKE — When Paul Smith’s College student Morgan Hilliard asked people to volunteer their wells to be tested for salt contamination for her senior capstone project, which seeks to measure the impact road salt runoff has on drinking water, she said she was surprised by how eager people were to have their wells examined.
That wasn’t the only surprise.
“One of the most surprising things is the lack of regulation around salt,” Hilliard said.
In her research, she found one local well with 12 times the federal health guidance maximum for safe sodium content for people on low-sodium diets, and another seven at contamination levels. She’s now advocating for better access to affordable well water testing and high-sodium water remediation.
“People need this information for their own health,” she said. “I think the most shocking thing for me is even though I know this information, there’s no streamlined process on how we can help our neighbors when the uncover the fact that they don’t have safe drinking water.”
The participants who volunteered their wells for her study were all thankful for the knowledge it provided, she said, adding that she’d like everyone to be able to have their wells tested.
Hilliard will be sharing her findings in a capstone presentation today at 3 p.m. in the Freer Auditorium on the Paul Smith’s College campus. These presentations are open to the public and Hilliard said Saranac Lake village board members have been invited to attend.
When salt is spread on roads to make them safer in the winter, it doesn’t stay there. It runs off in snow melt, down into the ground where it can infiltrate wells. High salt content in water is associated with health issues, especially for those with high blood pressure, or heart, kidney or liver diseases.
Hilliard is from Pennsylvania, where there’s plenty of road salt, too. After moving here to attend Paul Smith’s College and hearing people talk about it more and more, she chose it as the topic for her capstone.
“I think it’s really important to know how our actions as humans on this planet affect our own health and the health of our environment,” Hilliard said. “New York is one of the top users of road salt in the U.S.”
Between research by the college’s Adirondack Watershed Institute, the salt summit in Lake George and the “Hold the Salt” discussion at the Wild Center nature museum in Tupper Lake in February, she said it’s a common topic around here.
The results
Hilliard made two posts on the “Saranac Lake Neighbor Helping Neighbor” Facebook group seeking people with private wells who wanted their water studied to participate in her project, which focuses on the Saranac River and Moose Creek sub-watersheds around the Saranac Lake village.
She got 24 participants, but she said many more people from outside her study’s coverage area reached out saying they wanted their wells tested, too. Mostly, she said she heard from people concerned about their child’s health.
Hilliard said out of the 24 wells sampled using a conductivity meter to measure their salinity, seven were at contamination levels, nearly 30% of them.
“There’s actually no regulation around sodium in terms of drinking water,” she said.
So she used the Environmental Protection Agency’s health guidance for people with low-sodium diets — 20 milligrams of sodium per liter of water.
Of the seven over that 20-milligram limit, Hilliard said the lowest level of contaminate was 27.6 milligrams and the highest was 245.9 milligrams. That’s more than 12 times the EPA’s health guidance limit.
She said some of the participants were surprised at the level of sodium in their water, saying they couldn’t taste it.
Hilliard added that several wells were very close to being contaminated without making the list, with one sitting just below the threshold at 19.5 milligrams. This is still high enough to have a mild impact on someone on a low-sodium diet.
Hilliard said 15 of the participants, 62.5%, had never had their wells tested before. Of the nine who had their wells tested before, she said two hadn’t had a test is more than a decade.
Crucial knowledge
One participant with a contaminated well needed the information, Hilliard said. They had recently suffered a heart attack, and with a new need to drastically reduce her salt intake, decided to get tested. Hilliard said this was very impactful to her.
“This is information that people need to know,” she said.
The woman, who asked to not be named to not make their personal health information public, said she is in cardiac rehab after the frighting medical event. After seeing Hilliard’s online request for volunteer wells, she learned her well was producing water with 50 milligrams of sodium per liter, after passing through a water filter.
Salt causes high blood pressure, which contributes to heart attack risk. The woman said the salty water probably had some impact on her blood pressure but she didn’t think it was a large factor. Still, she has to cut salt out for her health now and said she’s looking into remediating her well. Until then, she’ll be buying bottled water.
The woman said her well is around 30 feet from state Route 3 and she hadn’t tested it in her 12 years in her home. She said she benefits from salt on roads. It keeps her safe while driving. But she also has to deal with the side effects of this safety.
Knowledge gap
The EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act protects municipal water, setting standards for it. But Hilliard said private wells are unregulated. It’s on the owner to figure out what is in their water. and testing costs a lot, she said. In the North Country, she said certified lab tests can cost between $245 and $550.
And once someone does the tests and learns they have a high level of salt in their water, they’re then faced with the question of what they will do about it. There are several options, re-drilling the well, installing a reverse osmosis filter or buying bottled water for drinking. These are all expensive, Hilliard said, and there’s no structured process to get it done.
She said she directed people with contaminated wells to contact the Adirondack Watershed Institute and ADKAction, which are active in this field.
Hilliard said this is an environmental justice issue.
In 2003, sodium was nominated to be added to the EPA’s “Drinking Water Contaminant Candidate List,” but it never was added.
“EPA determined that no regulatory action was appropriate or necessary … at that time,” according to a 2022 EPA report.
The public can nominate candidates for this list to the federal government. The EPA is currently creating its latest version of the list, so the nominations are not currently open.
The state has been conducting a road salt reduction pilot program in the winter with experiments in plowing techniques, speed reductions and alternative methods of snow and ice removal in select areas. There are currently test areas in Lake George, Lake Clear and Lake Placid.
But to stop the problem at its source will take years. This is a very complex issue, Hilliard said. Until then, she said people need ways to test and get safe drinking water.
Some places have required well testing, Hilliard said, but a contaminated well impacts property values. This is the reason she said she has to keep the specific results of her study confidential.
Hilliard said she’s hoping to raise community awareness, but added that she doesn’t just want to start discussions.
“Action is truly the solution to the issue,” Hilliard said.
She feels she’s just found the tip of the iceberg and as she kept getting deeper and deeper realized there’s much more research to be done.
Road salt runoff has negative impacts on natural waters, too. It harms animals, plants and the function of ecosystems. It corrodes cars and can damage appliances like dishwashers and washing machines.
After she graduates next weekend with a degree in environmental science and a minor in GIS, Hilliard said she will start as an aquatic invasive species field assistant with the Saranac Lake-based Adirondack Research consulting group.