Thousands of people have driven through the Warren County village of Columbia, even if they didn’t know it.
Interstate 80 runs through the Knowlton Township community, connecting New Jersey Routes 94 and 46.
That’s a lot of roads to keep clear in the winter.
Which means a lot of road salt.
That created problems for residents, not to mention their water heaters, according to a report Sunday in the New Jersey Herald that provided an update on the situation.
The Herald report said sources of the salt were identified as the township’s salt shed, and road and parking lot clearing by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, Warren County, the township and an I-80 truck stop.
The Herald reported that some residents retained an attorney and filed tort claims against the government agencies last year, a precursor to a possible lawsuit.
However, some action is being taken.
The Herald reported Knowlton Township has completed a $168,000 rebuild of its salt shed, and is working with the county and NJDOT to better coordinate road-salting and prevent redundancy.
Mayor Adele Starrs also told the newspaper that the township has established a committee to help find solutions for homeowners.

Because it’s wreaking havoc on our natural environment.
That means only 22 percent of the salt we use is actually doing what it’s applied to do.
And we can see the results of this already – the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reports that groundwater in Minnesota’s urban areas exceeds the state standard for chloride (salt) contamination.
Additionally, they’ve found that 39 bodies of water in the Twin Cities, including Minnehaha Creek, test above the state standard for chloride.
This means that if your groundwater becomes contaminated with chloride, the water from your tap may start to taste a little salty (and removing salt from water is prohibitively costly on a large scale).
Too much salt also can impact your favorite things to do in and around water.
Luckily, this issue has been gaining a lot more attention in the past several years and many public and private organizations are educating individuals and training professionals on smart salting techniques and alternatives.
For the past 16 years a road salt symposium has been hosted each winter in the Twin Cities to share research, innovative technologies and trainings for winter maintenance professionals and concerned citizens.
Another proposed solution we are closely watching is limited liability legislation for winter maintenance contractors who are voluntarily certified in smart salting techniques.
We are energized by the progress made to decrease salt pollution in Minnesota, and are proud to be a part of the solution.

The use of road salt has been getting a lot of airtime these past few months. Why? Because it’s wreaking havoc on our natural environment. While salt can control ice and keep us safe during our winter travels, it doesn’t tend to stay where we put it. A University of Minnesota study found that about 78 percent of road salt applied in the Twin Cities winds up in either our groundwater supply or our local lakes, streams, and rivers. That means only 22 percent of the salt we use is actually doing what it’s applied to do. And we can see the results of this already – the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency reports that groundwater in Minnesota’s urban areas exceeds the state standard for chloride (salt) contamination. Additionally, they’ve found that 39 bodies of water in the Twin Cities, including Minnehaha Creek, test above the state standard for chloride. What’s the big deal? Well, one teaspoon of salt permanently pollutes five gallons of water. This means that if your groundwater becomes contaminated with chloride, the water from your tap may start to taste a little salty (and removing salt from water is prohibitively costly on a large scale). Too much salt also can impact your favorite things to do in and around water. Chloride is toxic for…

It doesn’t just disappear," said Joe Grande, the water-quality manager in Madison, Wis. • Road salt is polluting our water: Here’s what we can do to fix it Madison is one of the more notable cases of drinking water contamination by sodium chloride.
Most people start tasting salt in water once it reaches concentrations of 250 milligrams per liter.
Even before that point, though, water can start to taste off.
The water, Fitzpatrick said, "does taste a little saltier, but it’s not like you would drink it and say, ‘Oh my gosh that’s super salty.’"
• ‘Dead fish or dead people?’
The challenges of curbing road salt use Madison has tried alternative deicers like cheese brine and beet juice, Grande said, but the level of organic compounds in those solutions create such an oxygen demand when they run off into lakes that they risk killing fish.
And there’s no way to clean up salt-contaminated water, aside from reverse osmosis.
In Minnesota, we’re safe from drinking salty water for the near future.
However, Brooke Asleson, water pollution prevention coordinator for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said they’re deep enough that the chloride contamination already found in some of the state’s surface water hasn’t reached them yet.
While there is an increasing trend in chloride levels in these aquifers, they’re not close to affecting how the water tastes, Asleson said.

When we toss down the road salt that’s ubiquitous with icy, snowy winters in the North, the salt doesn’t just disappear after it clears up the roads and sidewalks. In fact, it’s starting to get into drinking water in places across the Midwest and New England — posing an emerging threat to water supplies and a health risk for people on sodium-restricted diets or with high blood pressure. “The salt doesn’t just evaporate, it doesn’t break down. Once it’s applied in the environment, it’s got nowhere to go. It goes into the soil, or it goes into the lakes. It doesn’t just disappear,” said Joe Grande, the water-quality manager in Madison, Wis. • Road salt is polluting our water: Here’s what we can do to fix it Madison is one of the more notable cases of drinking water contamination by sodium chloride. Other instances have been reported in places like Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and parts of New Jersey — including one extreme case in the city of Brick, chlorides damaged lead water pipes, causing the toxic metal to leach into drinking water. Most people start tasting salt in water once it reaches concentrations of 250 milligrams per liter. Even before that point, though, water can start to taste off. Off-tasting water, and no good way off salt Faith Fitzpatrick lives in Madison’s Spring Harbor neighborhood. Her well has been among the hardest hit by road salt pollution. Some of her neighbors with low-salt diets have installed filtering systems in their homes….

Autoplay:Play Video0:00 0:00: 0%: 0%LIVE -0:00 MILFORD, Mich. (WXYZ) – A group of residents who live next door to the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford is suing the company for excess Sodium Chloride runoff into their well water.
One resident, Ellen Moore says she’s had kidney damage for 7 years.
The lawsuit was filed in Livingston County and alleges fraud, negligence and causing health and environmental issues.
Moore could not show us pictures of her kidneys, but she did have pictures of damage around their 2800 square foot house and a letter she says they got in 2014 that GM said salt may have migrated from their property.
The company in a statement says: GM does not believe this suit has merit.
Salt deposits naturally occur in this area, and salt is also used on the many nearby public roads during winter.
Nonetheless, acting as a good neighbor, salt usage at the Milford Proving Ground has been reduced by 60% over the last two decades and GM submits regular reports on the groundwater quality at the Milford Proving Ground to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
Attorney Alexander Memmen says they have documents that show GM knew it had “serious” problems with Sodium Chloride as far back as 1985.

Stormwater retention ponds may not protect surface waters from road salt contamination.
Stormwater management practices are designed to intercept water runoff from roads and parking lots before pollutants reach surface waters.
Detaining runoff in retention ponds can reduce flooding, increase the amount of water that is absorbed into the ground, and allow pollutants to bind to sediments in the ponds or be absorbed by algae and plants instead of traveling to streams and wetlands where they may harm wildlife and human health.
The research team recently completed a study, published in Environmental Science and Technology, to determine how well current stormwater management practices mitigate the effects of road salts and how those salts might be impacting both the surface waters in streams and ponds, and the groundwater that many citizens using well systems rely on daily.
If the stormwater ponds were working effectively, Snodgrass explained, he and his team could test the groundwater between the ponds and streams and expect to find very little sodium chloride because it would have been retained in the ponds.
The researchers discovered that routing runoff contaminated with road salts to stormwater ponds actually resulted in plumes of highly contaminated groundwater moving from the ponds to streams.
If salt levels continue to increase in freshwater areas, many fish and amphibians will stop breeding and eventually die because their bodies cannot adjust to the change.
"Some counties are already reimbursing people for the costs associated with replacing contaminated water wells," he added.
Snodgrass and his team plan to continue researching how road salts and other chemicals affect wildlife and the environment, while other researchers are exploring the effectiveness of alternatives to road salts and their potential effects on the environment and human health.
"It’s a balance sheet we’re looking at between economics and the environment and human health," Snodgrass said.