Burleigh McCoy

It's affecting plants and animals, and even small changes in the salt levels can lead to death.

So salt at the levels that are in Madison's Lake Wingra right now have been shown to be toxic to fish and snails and zooplankton.

The exception to all this are often invasive species.

So those are the ones that are more adaptable to new environments, hence why they're invasive.

So more salt could actually mean you're giving invasive species more room to thrive over native ones.

Oh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

So Hilary Dugan, the freshwater researcher we heard from earlier, also points out that for, say, a fish or a plant... Even if you're not dying, you still might be stressed by that high salinity.

So road salt is usually made out of sodium chloride.

And the American Heart Association recommends salinity.

2,300 milligrams of sodium a day as the max that a human should intake, but says actually you should probably keep it under 1,500 milligrams per day.

That's ideal.

So now in Madison, the drinking water comes from wells, not from lakes, but the city officials have measured increasing salt levels in some wells too.

Yikes.

Okay.

Okay.

One well, well 14, passed 120 milligrams per liter in 2014, which, okay, still probably isn't bad for you unless you're on a low-sodium diet.

Then that amount can add up if you're drinking a few liters a day because people also get salt from their food.