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Those piles of snow? They aren t clean
Where snow is put to melt matters, as it is contaminated with salt, gas and oil
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ALBANY After the Capital Region saw a historic amount of snowfall last week, snow plows, trucks, and crews worked tirelessly and are still working to remove the snow from the streets.
But all of that snow doesn’t just disappear - and where it gets piled up to melt matters because the runoff from snow melt isn’t clean. Snow can often contain salt and other pollutants like gasoline and oil from the roads.
The city of Albany, and state agencies, used to liberally dump snow in the Hudson River. But the Environmental Protection Agency 30 years ago began to realize what contaminants were contained within it, and established regulations meant to curtail snow dumping. Snow removed from streets within the City of Albany now gets piled at a vacant lot in the Port of Albany, the city s chosen spot for the last several years.