Heading for the lake -- More than melting snow runs into the water

By David Steinkraus

Monday, March 7, 2005 2:06 AM CST

RACINE COUNTY - It's finally melting, and you're probably thankful, except that what's also flowing away with the winter snows is all the other stuff that used to be on the road - oil, antifreeze, grease, metals, drippings from auto exhaust systems, and all the rest.

Snow removal crews have to dump the winter's accumulation somewhere; it can't pile up for months on streets. But snow piles on the shore of Lake Michigan at Pershing Park in Racine mean meltwater and everything in it flows directly into the lake. In Burlington, snow is piled on city parks near the Fox River. So it should be moved, right? "I don't know whether it's better to put the stuff along the shore line and let it get into the lake," said Jim Lubner, an education specialist at the Sea Grant Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "Does that stuff contain pollutants that we would ideally like to keep out of the lake? Certainly that's true." It's a complicated issue, he said, because there's more involved than simply where snow is when it melts.

Suppose you pile the snow from a city street on a field, he said. "A fair amount of water will run off that field anyway." How much runs off will depend on whether the ground is frozen, he said, and if it has thawed, there's always the possibility that the contaminants in the snow may contaminate the shallow groundwater reserves.

Snow left on parking lots runs into storm sewers anyway and will wind up in the rivers or Lake Michigan, just as it would if it had fallen as rain, he said.

That's the point that David Torgler made. He's the administrator for the city of Burlington, which, like every other city with a downtown, has to deal with getting piles of snow out. When the snow melts, it flows into the Fox River, he said, and any contaminants are diluted quickly by the large flow of river water. "That's my understanding of storm water is dilution is one of the solutions."

Ditches and lakes "It's not desirable to have dirty snow melting into the lake," said Vicki Harris, 53, a water quality specialist in Green Bay who works for the Sea Grant Institute. It would be better to have a depot where the melting snow could filter through soil, yet how much effect there is on a lake or river depends on how often the area is flushed with fresh water, she said.

Harris said she hasn't heard of problems related to snow melt in the open waters of Lake

Michigan.

Highway ditches are often most effected, she said. Road salt collects there where it can harm plants in the immediate area and can create a different environment. That's one of the reasons for the spread of phragmites, she said. The plant, also called common reed, is an invader native to Eurasia and Africa. Phragmites grows in brackish coastal waters, and it can tolerate salt, Harris said, so salt runoff from roads creates favorable conditions.

The salt used on roads and driveways and parking lots shows up in Lake Michigan, too, she said. For example, in Green Bay, there has been a noticeable increase in the salt concentration of the water. It's not an alarming increase, she said, and in the open lake there is probably no sign of this, but it's there.

Big piles The snow you see at Pershing Park is actually not from city streets, said Rick Jones, the city's public works commissioner. For the last two years the city has piled street snow on the old Walker Manufacturing property near the city's water treatment plant. You can see the pile next to Michigan Boulevard, separated from the lake by several hundred feet of ground and a boat-storage yard.

What's on Pershing Park is snow that the city allows commercial snow removal services to dump there, Jones said.

The lakefront site was chosen about 10 years ago after a citizen complained to the Department of Natural Resources about having snow on the park, Jones said. The city analyzed its alternatives, which included depositing snow at various city parks along the Root River. Jones said the city concluded that "the Root River would be much more sensitive because of the lower volume of water, the less volume of water, that we're discharging to."

A more critical issue than where the snow falls, Jones said, is developing a strategy to minimize the use of salt on roads.

Minimizing salt use is written into the city's storm water permit, said Pete Wood, 36, storm water engineer at the Department of Natural Resources office in Sturtevant. Certainly the state encourages communities to remove snow as quickly as possible to reduce the buildup of road contaminants, he said.

A state brochure suggests keeping snow piles at least 1,000 feet distant and downhill from wells and away from lakes, streams, and wetlands.

"Every city's going to have the same problem," Wood said. "It's one of those things - there's no good solution."

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