To Salt Or Not To Salt?

Every winter snow transforms the roads of Frostburg from a safe route to a treacherous one. The common solution to the danger is laying salt on the roads. The salt is a quick fix when it comes to the safety of the roads, but what about the long term effects of the salt. Very few people stop to think about the damaging effects the salt is having on the environment. As a matter of fact, the very salt that keeps your roads safe is the same salt that is running into your ground water and is potentially damaging to human health. One of the people whom find this issue worth researching is Dr. Phillip P. Allen of the Geography Department at Frostburg State University. Dr. Allen is conducting a study that will potentially give a deeper insight to the damaging effects of the salt on the environment. The results will hopefully give us a clear understanding of if the salt is really helping us or not. Is driving in the snow worth the damaging effect of not only the environment but possibly our health?