Too much salt threatens ecosystem and human health
The Occoquan Reservoir supplies water to some two million people in Northern Virginia.
January 7, 2021
Doctors often tell us, "cut back on your salt." And just as too much dietary salt is bad for blood pressure, too much salt in our nation's streams, lakes, and reservoirs threatens ecosystem health and the security of our nation's drinking water and food supplies.
"Salt levels are rising fast in freshwater across the United States," said Stanley Grant, a civil and environmental engineer at Virginia Tech and the principal investigator on a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project to look at new ways of addressing the problem. "It's a slow-moving train wreck. If we don't figure out how to reverse this trend soon, it could become one of our nation's top environmental challenges."