About Milwaukee's Jones Island salt pile

If Milwaukee was going to have a mountain, it’s fitting that that mountain would be made of the thing that keeps the city moving during its cold, icy winters: road salt.

Along with the pungent aroma of Milorganite, the gigantic salt piles are likely what most Milwaukeeans associate with the city’s Jones Island, once home to a commercial fishing village of Polish immigrants.

Today, the island holds tens of thousands of tons of road salt delivered to the Port of Milwaukee for use in melting icy streets, highways and interstates across Wisconsin.

In recent years, concern has grown about excess road salt washing off of streets and into nearby bodies of water, including Lake Michigan.

Roughly 2.2 billion pounds of chloride (a component of road salt) flush into the lake each year, according to a December 2021 study. And while the size of the lake helps dilute the salty pollutant, smaller tributaries aren’t so lucky. In the Milwaukee River basin alone, for example, over 100 miles of waterway are impaired by chloride, some with levels several times that which can be toxic to fish and aquatic life.

Many municipalities and private businesses, including some in the Milwaukee area, have made adjustments to reduce their salt use in the name of protecting freshwater, including brining, where salt is mixed with water before being applied to roads.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: About Milwaukee's Jones Island salt pile