New article: America's freshwater lakes are getting saltier read more at here http://www.spinonews.com/index.php/science/item/3290-america-s-freshwater-lakes-are-getting-saltier

The America's freshwater lakes are becoming saltier due to development and exposure to road salt. A study of 371 lakes published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that many Midwestern and Northeastern lakes are in high level chloride trends, with some 44% of lakes sampled in these regions are effected with long-term salinization.

 

The first large-scale analysis of chloride trends in freshwater lakes. The study was initiated and tested by a team of fifteen researchers as part of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) Fellowship Program.

 

Chloride has become high with great extent in 371 freshwater lakes that were analyzed. Each lake was larger than 4 hectares in area which has at least 10 years of recorded chloride data. Major of the lakes 284 were located in a North American Lakes Region that includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Ontario, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

 

From 1940s, the usage of road salt to keep winter roads has been changing from low to high. Every year 23 million metric tons of sodium chloride deicer is applied to North America's roads to get snow and ice Melt away. And the large amounts of salts absorbed and washed into nearby lakes and it is justified that it is a major cause and source of chloride pollution to groundwater, streams, rivers, and lakes.

[Researchers designed a bionic leaf that synthesizes fertilizer]

 

The research team has implemented a plan to get rid of the salts in lakes that road density and land cover within a 100- to 1500-meter buffer around each of the 371 study lakes. Roadways and surfaces such as parking lots and sidewalks are reliable for road salt application because as developed areas, they are susceptible to high levels of salting.

 

Roads and surfaces includes parking lots within 500 meters of a lake's shoreline were a strong predictor of elevated chloride concentrations. When results are extrapolated to all lakes in the North American Lakes Region, some 7,770 lakes may be at risk of rising salinity.

 

The Salt level in lakes tend to increase in coming days, many North American lakes will surpass EPA-recommended chloride levels in 50 years. 14 North American Lakes Region lakes are assumed to be highly concentrated with the EPA's aquatic life criterion concentration of 230 mg/L by 2050, and 47 are on track to reach chloride concentrations of 100 mg/L during the same time period.

 

Lakes with high chloride levels cause damage to aquatic life mostly fishes and invertebrates with decrease in oxygen levels in lakes. And this situation can make a huge sanitation problem in the states.

 

In the North American Lakes Region where road salt is a reality roads and other impervious surfaces within 500 meters of a lake's shoreline are a recipe for salinization. We need to manage and monitor lakes to ensure they are kept 'fresh' and protect the myriad of services they provide, from fisheries and recreation to drinking water supplies."

 

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