by Julie Gowel ·
Friday, March 13, 2026
A recent discussion among Harvard residents on the social media site Nextdoor showed road salt is an issue for many people in town. Marc Sevigny, a Harvard resident for over three decades, raised the question on Feb. 19: “Do you, like me, notice the much larger quantities of salt on the roads?” Sevigny’s concern was for the environmental impact the road salt would have on the town’s waterways, wetlands, and vegetation.
Sevigny was not alone in his concern. Soon, the thread had 30 comments from other concerned townspeople who expressed varying degrees of satisfaction with the Department of Public Works handling of the multiple winter storms.
Susan Curtis wrote: “Dogs can’t even be walked on the roads due to [the salt]. Where is the respect for the plants, the waters, the aquatic life? Are we just concerned with not being able to drive fast and quickly after a snowfall? Or are we just saving money on cleanup by not including sand in the mix?”
“You worry about wetlands and I worry about sliding off the road into a tree,” wrote resident Mary Jarvis. Jim Lee, another participant in the conversation thread on Nextdoor, suggested requesting a “review” by the town’s DPW director to explain Harvard’s road salt use to residents.
The exchange reflects a broader challenge facing municipalities across Massachusetts: balancing public safety during winter storms with the environmental impacts of the materials used to keep roads clear.
To better understand the issue, the Press spoke with state roadway operations experts, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as Harvard’s Department of Public Works and Harvard’s conservation agent regarding the use of road salt and its impact on groundwater and vegetation.
Salt is considered a deicer and has been used for decades to make winter roads safer because it lowers the freezing point of water. When salt dissolves in moisture on the roadway, it prevents ice from forming until temperatures drop significantly lower than the normal freezing point of 32 degrees.
Modern winter road treatment increasingly relies on strategies designed to prevent ice from bonding to pavement in the first place, a technique known as anti-icing. One common method is pretreating roads with liquid salt brine before a storm begins.
“What brine does is form an invisible layer between the roadway and the snow and ice,” said Mark Goldstein, director of roadway operations for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s highway division. “The snow and ice find it more difficult to bond to that roadway layer.”
This allows plows to remove snow more easily and reduces the amount of salt needed after the storm. Transportation departments have also adopted practices such as pre-wetting salt crystals with liquid chemicals before spreading them. This type of “treated salt” is what is used on Harvard’s roadways, according to DPW Director Eric Ryder.
“We do not have the liquid application equipment on our trucks,” said Ryder. “We purchase the treated salt that has a rust inhibitor in it, and it keeps it in place on the road.”
According to Goldstein, these newer approaches have helped transportation agencies reduce salt usage while maintaining road safety. “We’re using less salt now than we were for a winter of the same severity 15 years ago by easily 10% to 40%, depending on where you are in the state,” he said.
In recent years, both the state and the town have begun using technology to make winter road treatment more precise. The DPW installed cameras at the Prospect Hill overlook and Town Hall in 2024 that take snapshots of the pavement and measure road temperature, air temperature, wind speed, humidity, and freeze points. The data is sent to an app accessible by the DPW, as well as the Police and Fire departments, in order to enhance road safety and maintenance efficiency.
According to Goldstein, the state operates about 60 meteorological monitoring stations similar to the ones installed in Harvard. Additionally, mobile sensors mounted on state snow and ice remediation vehicles can measure the friction between tires and pavement. Route 111, which runs from the Route 2 interchange on Ayer Road, through the center of town, and to the Interstate 495 interchange, are maintained by state vehicles.
“The sensors give us a numerical value for grip,” said Goldstein. Under ideal conditions, a vehicle traveling 55 miles per hour might need about 130 feet to stop, or the distance of about nine car lengths. “If that grip drops to around 0.15, a car traveling 55 miles per hour might take almost 700 feet to stop,” a distance of about 47 car lengths. If road grip drops significantly, the stopping distance can double or even triple.
New spreading equipment can adjust salt application automatically based on these conditions. “When grip is poor, the conveyor speeds up and more salt is applied,” Goldstein said. “If grip is good, the conveyor slows down.”
Unfortunately, town vehicles are not equipped with the sensors or automatic spreaders. “That is a very expensive option,” said Ryder. “You need a GPS in the vehicle to be able to determine the number of miles, and it’s a very scientific process. You could look at about $15,000 per piece of equipment to put that on the treatment trucks. So there’s a significant investment.”
A great deal of the Nextdoor conversation centered around excessive salt use in town, and piles of it accumulating in certain places. “Sometimes, depending if it’s on a corner, [salt] will slide off the top of the truck,” said Ryder. “[Drivers] come to a stop, they’re not shutting their spinner off, and we’re working through that. That’s education.”
According to Goldstein, Massachusetts is also part of a national research consortium called Clear Roads, which studies winter maintenance techniques and new technologies designed to improve safety while reducing environmental impacts.
Many longtime residents remember the days when the town would use sand, or a mixture of salt and sand to treat icy roadways.
“We don’t use much sand in our operations,” said Goldstein. “You’re not going to get any deicing with sand and it loses its angularity. It loses that sharpness once a couple of cars have gone over a piece of sand.” Additionally, Goldstein said that when the sand enters waterways, it creates a cloudiness that reduces visibility for aquatic creatures and disrupts their feeding cycles.
“The problem with sand is you’re basically putting it down, and then it has to be cleaned up,” said Ryder. “And then when it’s cleaned up, that’s considered a hazardous material. It has to be disposed of properly. So now you’re paying for disposal costs on top of what you’re putting down.”
Ryder said he does not have figures for the total amount of salt used for the 2025-26 winter since he just took control of the DPW in January. He plans to track consumption moving forward.
The question was raised in the Nextdoor thread about the Board of Health and conservation agencies’ roles in DPW operations. The short answer is that there is no role. “My responsibility as the director is to make sure that the roads are safe and passable,” said Ryder. “What’s the value of an individual? Is there a number of accidents that I’m OK with? No, I can’t be OK with that. Because [then] I’m not doing my job.”
While public works officials focus primarily on road safety, the ecological impacts of road salt use are undeniable.
Liz Allard, Harvard’s conservation agent, said stormwater runoff can carry salt directly into wetlands and ponds, causing chloride to accumulate because it does not break down.
“Elevated chloride levels can stress or kill sensitive aquatic species, alter the natural balance of organisms, and reduce biodiversity,” said Allard.
Salt can also affect vegetation along roadsides and wetland buffers. “Salt stresses vegetation by disrupting the plant’s ability to take up water, essentially creating drought-like conditions,” Allard said.
“Balancing environmental impacts with safe winter road conditions is an ongoing challenge,” Allard said. It is a challenge the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency takes seriously.
At the state level, technological advances in road paving materials is proving to be one way to mitigate road salt pollution in waterways. According to Jo Anne Kittrell, public affairs officer for the U.S. EPA, New England division, a porous pavement is in development that will reduce water runoff from roads and has been shown to lessen snow and ice buildup.
Permeable pavement is similar to a sponge in that it allows water to drain through the surface instead of pooling on the roadway. No standing water means no freeze–thaw cycles that typically create icy conditions.
“A recent study showed that the annual median snow/ice cover on porous pavement was three times lower than that of regular pavement,” said Kittrell in an email to the Press. “And that the low amounts of ice/snow accumulating on porous pavement led to a 77% reduction in annual salt used for maintenance.”
While the EPA does not directly manage daily road salting operations, it does have a say when it comes to the protection of groundwater and waterways. Regulatory tools such as Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) and Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System acts require permitting to manage runoff, according to Kittrell. “[The] EPA has established exposure levels for dissolved chloride in freshwater to protect aquatic ecosystems,” she said. “Implementation of TMDLs often includes reduced salt application rates, improved storage, and use of alternative deicers.”
For Ryder and other public works officials, winter road treatment ultimately comes down to safety. “[Environmental impact] is always in the back of my mind, but it’s very difficult to quantify,” he said.
Winter road treatment requires balancing competing priorities. Residents’ concerns about environmental impacts are valid, according to all experts interviewed about the subject, but so is the expectation that roads will remain safe and navigable during storms.
“No storm is identical,” Ryder said. “There are multiple factors that come into play when making a decision.”
For communities like Harvard, the challenge is finding ways to improve efficiency and reduce environmental impacts while maintaining the level of safety residents expect during a New England winter.