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Duluth staff outline plan to cut road salt as MPCA readies chloride limits
Summary
A Minnesota GreenCorps member and city staff told a Committee of the Whole the city must reduce road-salt use to meet an MPCA Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process; recommendations include more brine capacity, liquid-capable trucks, staffing increases and tracking to comply with future MS4 permit limits.
Jake Michna, a Minnesota GreenCorps member serving the city of Duluth, told the Committee of the Whole the city is preparing a chloride-reduction plan as the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) completes a TMDL for local trout streams.
Michna said the city “uses about 13 and a half thousand tons of salt, per year,” an average from 2009 to 2022, and summarized how road salt dissolves and runs off as stormwater, harming fish, aquatic insects and stream vegetation. He told the council that surface waters are judged impaired for chloride under MPCA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency criteria when concentrations reach 230 milligrams per liter (mg/L) on two occasions in a three-year period or 860 mg/L on a single occasion.
The presentation noted five trout streams in Duluth listed for chloride impairment: Tischer Creek, Miller Creek, Chester Creek, Keene Creek and Kingsbury Creek. Michna said ongoing monitoring found four of those streams tested above 230 mg/L and, on some…
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