The effects of road salt on stream macroinvertebrate communities are becoming well understood, and therefore road salt isn’t necessarily an “emerging” contaminant. But road salt content in streams could be considered an indicator of more difficult to detect and less understood contaminants. Fortunately, measuring road salt contamination in streams is simple and inexpensive: EnviroDIY.org provides instruction for building an autonomous water monitoring station based on the Mayfly datalogger shown here. See more information on road salt measurements on this EnviroDIY.org blog.
