Be Salt Smart

What is Salt Smart?

Salt Smart is a collaboration between the City of Columbia, MO, Boone County, and the University of Missouri working together to reduce the amount of salt, or chlorides, reaching our local creeks and streams. The Salt Smart Collaborative shares information on best practices and creates outreach materials so we can stay safe on the roads and protect our local waterways.

What About Safety?

Salt helps to keep our roads and sidewalks safe during the winter, but this salt often makes its way to our local rivers. While salt use is necessary to increase winter safety, we work with our municipalities, private companies and residents to be Salt Smart to keep people safe and protect our local water quality.

The Effects on Our Environment

Salt pollutes. When snow and ice melts, the salt goes with it, washing into our lakes, streams, wetlands, and groundwater. It takes only one teaspoon of road salt to permanently pollute 5 gallons of water. Once in the water, there is no way to remove the chloride, and at high concentrations, chloride can harm fish and plant life. Less is more when it comes to applying road salt.

Resources

Videos

Salt Smart is a collaboration between the City of Columbia, MO, Boone County, and the University of Missouri working together to reduce the amount of salt, or chlorides, reaching our local creeks and streams.

Maps