After a $3 billion state bond to fund climate change projects fell apart because of the pandemic economy, a lot of environmental policy attention up here turned to a bill that would study the damage caused in the Adirondacks by road salt.

We’ve reported this year on that damage. Salt threatens human health and property values.

The road salt bill was introduced last winter in Saranac Lake.

Its Senate sponsor, Sen. Betty Little, a North Country Republican, made sure it moved by working with Sen. Tim Kennedy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate’s transportation committee.  He put his name atop the bill in Little’s place and gave the bill a better chance of passing. It cleared the Senate and state Assembly this summer.

Then, crickets.

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Gov. Andrew Cuomo won praise from Adirondack and statewide conservation organizations today when he signed into law the Randy Preston Road Salt Reduction Act – a bipartisan bill that would help reduce road salt pollution and protect drinking water in the Adirondack Park.

Late Wednesday night, the governor signed a law aimed at reining in the 300 million pounds of salt dumped each year in the Adirondack Park to clear roads for fast-moving vehicles.

Local lawmakers and environmental groups have been pushing the idea since last year. The law creates a task force and directs state transportation, public health and environmental officials all to help with a three-year study that will test new ways to manage roads in the winter.

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A coalition of Adirondack conservationists is calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to sign into law a bi-partisan bill that would help reduce road salt pollution and protect drinking water in the Adirondack Park.

The legislation creates an Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force and Pilot Program. If approved by the Governor, the new law would establish a salt-reduction pilot program from October 2021 through 2024 to test alternative measures already shown to work better and cost less than current winter road maintenance practices.  Highway safety would remain the top priority.

New York State has applied millions of tons of road salt to the park’s highways since it began using salt in 1980.

The Adirondack Park contains more than 11,000 lakes and ponds, and more than 30,000 miles of rivers, brook and streams.  It is the source of most of the state’s major rivers.

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