Project Information
Goal:
The goal of this project was to establish a framework that prioritizes opportunities to protect drinking water from salt contamination by assessing the factors that contribute to risk of road salt impacts on water quality in public groundwater sources.
Objectives:
- Identify and investigate community groundwater sources with the highest salt contamination in Massachusetts, and display this data using GIS technology for observance of statewide trends.
- Identify factors that raise the risk of future salt contamination in groundwater sources.
- Develop a prioritization framework that highlights the primary factors that cause risk of salt contamination to a groundwater source.
- Evaluate the prioritization framework on usefulness, ease of use, and clarity.
- Develop a format for a statewide fact sheet informing water suppliers about the issue of salt contamination of groundwater sources in Massachusetts.
Results:
- Geographic Information System (GIS) maps of sodium concentrations in community groundwater sources throughout Massachusetts
- Prioritization Framework which highlights the risk causing factors of road salt contamination in groundwater sources
- Statewide Fact Sheet about road salt and its impacts to drinking water sources and information on the prioritization framework