Burleigh McCoy

He even makes his own brine and his rural property.

And he has a walk-behind sidewalk version.

It's like his own R2-D2 that sprays brine.

Brian says he wasn't even really thinking about the environment, but that seeing excess salt on the ground is a pet peeve of his.

Yeah, and Allison says it's solutions like these, community-based, grassroots, that can make a big difference in keeping salt out of freshwater.

She told me that the city of Madison has dropped their salt use roughly 40%.

And that's true whether it's road salt or salt from mining or fertilizer.

The solution is both simple and hard.

Stop adding salt to the environment, right?

And that was eye-opening for me.

I grew up in the Midwest, and I got used to seeing salt everywhere.

I never thought about where it went.

And it's a tough sell in ice-prone areas, but a lot of places, like Madison, have gotten really serious about at least pulling back their salt use.

This story reminded me how solutions can happen if enough people get on board.

Hi, Emily.

So I'm here with part two, aquifers.

And don't worry, it's okay if you missed part one.

So an aquifer is just an underground layer of rock or materials that holds water.

It's not.

It's more like water between rocks that gets to the surface through wells and springs.