Tackling a salty issue

Anyone notice the readings of sodium in our fine (blech) town water supply have been rising over the years? It's a sensitive topic too if you ask for the readings from the AWD. You usually get some kind of response along the lines of "well it's not even as much as a hotdog". Which is true technically of course because the amount in a hot dog is in the 100s of mg/l whereas the amount in our water is only between 30 and 300.

Wait a minute - 300?! Yeah that's the amount listed for some tests last year. The big problem I have with that is that amount is a base level for any cooking, drinking or water used for washing and bathing (heard of bath salts? ;). So add that to your boiled hot dogs and you have a recipe for high blood pressure soup. Anything beyond about 10 is noticeable in drinking water. Check the sodium levels for most bottled water and you'll find readings in the range of 0 to 5mg/l. The EPA suggests that a level of 20 mg/l is considered healthy. By the way, sodium is included on the CCL (contaminate candidates list) for drinking water, although it's included only as what they call a Research policy. If it were a Regulatory Determination Policy AWD would have to fix this situation. That day may come ....

The common wisdom suggests this is because of road salt. I don't know that we know that for sure though and I would venture a guess there are other sources too. For instance, how about the massive private parking lots along Rt 12? The location of our wells could not be at a worse place for road salt and ice treatment- the junction of Rt12, 290 and 90.

According to this article today in the Globe, Andover is dealing with this same issue trying to relocate a salt storage shed. Salt levels have risen to unhealthful levels during a short time.

it found that the level of sodium more than doubled between 1998 and 2003, from 32 parts per million to 70 parts per million - more than three times the EPA's recommended maximum level for human consumption.

Though sodium is not as dangerous as some compounds on the federal government's list of drinking water contaminants, high levels of the element in tap water are a health concern.

The EPA notes that a high level of salt intake may be associated with hypertension. On its website, the EPA states that it needs to update its guidance level for sodium and that it believes the level is probably too low. In a related consumer advisory, the agency reports that "sodium levels in drinking water from most public water systems are unlikely to be a significant contribution to adverse health effects."

We've had our issues with this in Auburn for at least 30 years. Something should be done about it. Think of the expense people go through, many who I know, to buy bottled water for drinking. Even the corrosive effects of the salty water on bridges, cars, pipes and the like.

We need to work on this I think. According to MassHighway, there is a low salt area in Oxford, which has a "town gap" in Auburn. Maybe this needs to be expanded. This is a health issue for anyone on a restricted sodium diet, really the whole town and we need to hold to task the water district, highway departments and others dumping salt that ends up in our drinking water.

Here's an overview from EPA on the issue. It's a clear case of pitting the rights of travellers over the rights of residents yet again in Auburn. So we want to enable clear roads for people passing through (or spending money at the businesses in town), even if that means residents all end up with hypertension? I don't think so - we can do better ....