The City of Madison Engineering and Streets divisions, in partnership with Wisconsin Salt Wise, invites the community to join in on Wisconsin Salt Awareness Week, Jan. 23-27, 2023 to learn about the impacts of salt on our environment and take part in some fun events focused around salt use education.

Salt is a pollutant that degrades infrastructure, soils, and our freshwater.

All the salt used on roads and sidewalks ends up in local waterways. Salt can be an effective deicer, but more is not always better. Salt prematurely ages roads and bridges and degrades freshwater lakes and streams. The City of Madison implements the following smart salting practices:

• Engineering: Educates applicators, removes snow with mechanical methods, calibrates equipment and sets application rates based on pavement temperature to avoid over salting.
• Streets: Streets Division applies salt as needed on the main thoroughfares and Metro Bus Routes of Madison, calibrates its machines and coordinates with the Engineering Division to train salt application to plow operators. The Streets Division bought new vehicles to deploy more pre-treatment brine to roads to lessen overall salt use. Streets continues to look for more ways to use less salt on our roads while also maintaining safe road conditions we need.

Get Involved in Salt Awareness Week 2023

Wisconsin Salt Wise Partnership, a coalition of organizations across the state working together to reduce salt pollution in our lakes, streams and drinking water, is hosting “Wisconsin Salt Awareness Week” from Jan. 23-Jan. 27, 2023.
Wisconsin Salt Awareness Week aims to educate citizens on the issue of salt pollution: how salt impacts freshwater ecosystems, the role of water softening, ideas for teaching kids about salt pollution, and other ways to get involved. There will be a number of opportunities to connect with salt education:

• LIVE Webinars: 12:30-1 p.m., Jan. 23-27, 2023, speakers will host educational sessions via livestream on YouTube focused around salt use. Salt Awareness Week YouTube Watch Live Link
  • Speakers include Sujay Kaushal (University of Maryland), Charlie Paradis (University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee), Allison Couture (UW Health), Shannon Haydin (Wisconsin DNR), and Allison Madison (WI Salt Wise).  
• Salt Wise on Tap Event: Join Wisconsin Salt Wise 7 p.m., Jan. 24, 2023, Starkweather Brewing Company, 2439 Atwood Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin, to learn from local experts about current salt levels and what is being done to prevent further damage.
  • Guests/Speakers include: Hilary Dugan, Associate Professor of Limnology at UW-Madison, Mike Rupiper, Deputy Agency Director of the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission, Julia Whidden, Citizen Science Coordinator at the UW-Arboretum.
  • Register: https://www.wisaltwise.com/Event/Detail/1436