Greetings:

This issue of your Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District pollution prevention newsletter includes chloride reduction resources to help your community take action:

  1. Save the Date: Customer community chloride meeting, Sept. 19, 2018
  2. Winter salt certification training dates announced
  3. Road salt grants available; other salt reduction rebates and grants ongoing
  4. Business salt reduction event recording available

More information and resources, including past issues of this newsletter, are available on our municipal pollution prevention webpage.

Best regards,

Emily Jones & Catherine Harris
Pollution Prevention Specialists, Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District
Save the date: District customer community-wide chloride reduction meeting
Mark your calendar: the district is hosting a meeting for all customer communities on Wednesday, September 19 at 2:00 PM, focusing on actions you can take in your community to reduce chloride pollution. This meeting will be part of district activities for Pollution Prevention Week (Sep. 17 - 23).

Reducing chloride may be the most important action you can take to keep sewer rates low in the future. If the district has to upgrade facilities to meet regulatory limits for chloride, the cost of treatment could increase sewer bills by as much as 500%.

Right now, the district has a window of opportunity to meet chloride limits by reducing salt inputs to the sewer system. If successful, this approach will save hundreds of millions of dollars for our community.

You can help. This meeting will provide you with information, tools and connections that you can use to motivate salt reduction in your community. More information will follow.
Winter salt certification training dates announced
Each year, millions of pounds of road salt are applied to surfaces in the Madison area and end up in local waterways and drinking water. The City of Madison's Winter Salt Certification program is designed to curb salt use by training and certifying salt applicators on salt application best practices. If you have staff who have not yet attended road salt training, please send them to one of these trainings:

  • August 16 - parking lot & sidewalk focus
  • September 18 - roads focus
  • September 19 - parking lot & sidewalk focus
  • October 19 - parking lot & sidewalk focus

These FREE trainings are open to any entity in Dane County, and will be held at the Lussier Center.
Registration will be open on the WI Salt Wise website once available.
Road salt grants, other funding available
The district is currently offering road salt reduction grants for 2018. If your streets department is interested in purchasing equipment or materials to help reduce salt use, you may be eligible for funding. The deadline for the first review of applications is August 30, 2018.

Meanwhile, the district is also offering funding for other chloride reduction projects through rebates and innovation grants. All salt reduction funding opportunities are available on the district's chloride reduction grants page.

Encourage your utility customers to apply for a salt reduction rebate in 2018. This funding is intended for larger facilities, such as businesses, industries and multi-family residences, that can reduce over 100 pounds of salt per month by making softener upgrades, process changes, or efficiency improvements.

You can paste text from this SAMPLE LETTER onto your municipal letterhead to notify large water users in your community about these rebates.
District educates businesses on salt reduction
On May 30, the district hosted Smart Salt Use for Businesses, a seminar for local businesses to learn why and how to reduce their salt use. This event included an overview of the district's chloride funding programs, case studies of local businesses that have successfully reduced salt use and exhibits from water treatment experts.

Missed the event? Want to share it with coworkers or businesses in your community? View this webinar of the presentation given during the event.