Is making saltwater bad for the environment?
 

First, I admit that I know nothing about city water treatment systems and am no chemistry expert, but this article on MPR, https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/1...ater-pollution, about how road salt is bad for water made me wonder if our creation of saltwater for home aquariums contributes to the problem.

One line in the article says: "Once salt is in a body of water, it's nearly impossible to remove."

My city's water treatment web site says: "Dissolved salts and minerals are small enough to remain in the water after ultrafiltration."

So, am I adding more salt/minerals to our freshwater supply each time I do a water change and dump water down the drain?

Thoughts? Links to helpful articles/research?

Thanks.

Don't worry my dude.

The amount of salt we add to our water to make saltwater as aquarists, compared to the amount of road salt dumped on roads, is miniscule.

You are the proverbial drop of water in a bucket of concerns.

More like a drop of water in a train full of tankers.

Agreed - negligable

Its worth noting for funzies that the article states that saltwater is toxic to fish. Or I should say, the chloride found in saltwater is. Clearly talking about levels of concentration well and above any that we reach!

The sky is falling!!


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Overall, even for salt dumping to the road, the impact depend on the hydrological properties of the region. What they stated is true for Minnesota where there are many small lakes without a significant outlet drainage. So salt that enters to those systems will remain there.

But there are few places in the US that is hydrologically as "closed" as Minnesota. Most regions have a major drainage; either a main river or a smaller river that connects to a main river, or they are simply too close to the ocean and rainwater is enough to drain minerals back to the ocean.

Imo agricultural runoff is far more damaging to the environment anywhere within the nation compared to the road salt.

Ha, man, read this and for a slight moment wondered how bad I was messing with my ground water for my well by dumping used saltwater outside or into my septic. Then realized the major road that is closer to my well than my septic definitely has waaaaay more salt dumped on it every winter.

Depends on how you look at things. Are roads a good thing or a bad thing? Our ecosystem, the earth has a way of keeping things in check. Fires remove brush and trees allowing for more new growth. Floods move soil around allowing for more nutrients to be exposed. Has gone on for millions of years. We are part of that system. A vast majority of people feel building more cites and roads ect.. is great. More jobs, more places to live ect...Moving resources here and there, oil, asphalt, iron... At a certain point this becomes problematic unless you have unlimited resources. Just like the colony of fruit flies in a jar. Once the population out grows the food/water source or air supply, disaster happens, you have a mass die off. Humans have been on the earth for a very short time. When our time is up the earth will go on. The salt will move back to its rightful place . The earth will see to that.

why an i up at 4 am anyway

Doesn't salt get removed when water evaporates (for the most part)?

The contrary.

The salt remains, and the water disappears. This is why you need an auto-top off, or you need to manually refill your tanks. Otherwise the salinity goes up and BAD things happen!

... This is also why after a winter, there is all that white grime caked on the roads. Salt that remained behind once the water/snow melted/evaporated.

Evaporation is relatively pure H20.

Most treatment plants are close to rivers and water ways so they can dump the "cleaned" water. All rivers lead to the ocean eventually anyway

I'm late to respond, but thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Appreciate your thoughts.