By Ann Donnelly
Regional municipal leaders, business representatives, federal officials and state lawmakers gathered Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, at the Crowne Plaza Desmond Hotel for the 11th annual Salt Summit. Hosted by the Lake George Association and Lake George Waterkeeper, the inaugural statewide event addressed rising chloride levels in municipal and private drinking water supplies, infrastructure damage and winter supply chain volatility across New York state.
Local officials from Saratoga and Warren counties emphasized that protecting environmental assets such as Lake George and Saratoga Lake does not require compromising public safety during winter weather.
“We collectively face what I see as a triple mandate,” said Dr. Brendan Wiltse, president and CEO of the Lake George Association. “We have to maintain safe roads in the wintertime. But, at the same time, we also have to protect the environment, and we need to ensure the public’s right to clean water, whether that’s in a municipal system or in a private system.”
For local municipalities, balancing tight operating budgets with environmental stewardship presents financial and logistical hurdles. Town of Wilton Highway Superintendent Mike Monroe highlighted the operational strains small towns face when navigating seasonal salt supply delays and rising material costs.
“For the town, our storage capacity is only about 1,200 tons,” Monroe said during a panel on supply chain resilience. “So for me, when I hear there’s a shortage coming with 14 plow routes and 240 miles of road that we have to plow, my only option is to revert to mixing with sand, to stretch out what we have, and to make sure that our brine tanks are full.”
To scrape pavement more efficiently and reduce chemical use, Monroe explained that the town retrofitted all 14 of its plows with live-edge blades this year. However, he emphasized that adopting further measures, such as computerized precision calibration, requires significant upfront capital, noting that plow costs have risen from $280,000 per truck five to six years ago to $380,000 today.
At the conclusion of the summit, WIT Advisers, a training and advisory firm specializing in sustainable winter management, honored Monroe for his leadership in advancing sustainable winter maintenance practices in the town of Wilton and across the region.
In the private commercial sector, regional hospitality businesses near Lake George are leading voluntary salt-reduction efforts. Jennifer Clark, safety coordinator for the Fort William Henry Hotel & Conference Center, detailed how the 18-acre resort property at the southern end of Lake George shifted away from heavy salting.
“We’ve been doing brining for the last five years,” Clark said. She noted that the property now tracks application rates three times daily and uses live site cameras. “I have tracked how much salt we’ve used. We reduced 500 pounds,” she reported.
Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner discussed the need for regional intermunicipal cooperation and state capital support, citing water bodies in her district such as Saratoga Lake and Cossayuna Lake.
“Saratoga Lake is at the heart of my district and it’s surrounded by a state road and five municipalities have a piece of this,” Woerner said. “So we really need those five municipalities and the state to be working together to come up with a solution, not just for the ring road, but for the feeder roads.”
Woerner emphasized that state assistance must align highway infrastructure funding with environmental goals. “It is really a resource, and giving municipalities and counties the capital to buy the new equipment that they need, operating dollars to train their operators, all of that is very expensive,” Woerner stated. “I think all of this requires not a state standard, but a conversation between all of the parties who have responsibility.”
Summit organizers urged local governments, commercial applicators and state lawmakers to build a statewide coalition ahead of the 2027 legislative session.