CHICAGO — During icy Midwest winters, a Chicagoan’s step onto the sidewalk is often met with a familiar crunch underfoot. But salt, used to keep roads safe for driving and sidewalks safe for walking, comes with an ecological price: It ends up in our water, and once it’s there, it’s almost impossible to remove. As levels of chlorides continue to rise in Lake Michigan and exceed state limits in Chicago-area waterways, municipalities across the region are grappling with the urgent need to reduce the use of road salt in winter.
In November, the Illinois Pollution Control Board issued an order giving the city of Chicago, the Illinois and Cook County departments of transportation, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and more than 40 other organizations 15 years to meet the state’s limit, pending approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
According to the board, the goal of the order “is not to avoid compliance, but rather to create a transparent tool, as authorized under the Clean Water Act, that allows incremental progress in reducing chloride while recognizing the issues presented in our State by the use of road salt during the winter months to maintain public safety.”
