Road-salt contamination of public and
private water supplies has become a
serious and costly problem, particularly in
the Northeast and Midwest. For example,
reports of road-salt contamination from
100 of the 351 municipalities in
Massachusetts from 1983 through 1990
required an expenditure of about 2.5
million dollar to investigate and
remediate. Nationally, an estimated 10
million dollar are spent annual ly by State
and local governments to prevent and
remediate road-salt contamination.
One method used by State highway
agencies to reduce road- salt
contamination of public-water supplies is
to divert the salt-laden highway runoff
through drainage systems from section
of highway that pass near public-water
supplies to less sensitive areas. The U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), in
cooperation with the Massachusetts
Highway Department (MHO), has
conducted an investigation of the relative
effectiveness of four highway-drainage
systems in preventing road-salt
contamination of ground water.
This fact sheet describes the
highway-drainage systems tested, the
general hydrogeology of the study area,
and the methods used to evaluate the
drainage systems; and presents
preliminary findings of the effectiveness
of the systems in preventing road-salt
contamination of ground water. These
findings are based on data collected from
November 1990 through May 1992. The
re ult of this investigation will have
wider application than just in the
snow-belt regions of the United States,
Canada, and Europe, as other
contaminants in highway runoff either
can be diverted from sensitive areas by
drainage systems or allowed to seep into
the ground, potentially contaminating
ground water.
