Salt Symposium
The 26th Salt Symposium will be held Tuesday, August 5th, 2025. It is a day-long virtual event bringing together professionals around the world to share their expertise on current research, planning, and initiatives surrounding chloride: including snow and ice management, low salt design, water softening, wastewater, agriculture.
The Salt Symposium is an annual event focused on understanding the concerns, research, solutions, and management of chloride use and innovation that can move us to a lower salt future to improve community sustainability and protect vital freshwater systems and infrastructure.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Salt Symposium is featured in a Special Edition of Environmental & Engineering Geoscience (E&EG) Journal. Register now to receive a free copy of this special addition and read about the valuable insights and research it contains.
Salt Symposium Resources
- Agenda
- Our Sponsors
- Leadership Award Nominations
- Technical Assistance
- Future Topic Suggestions
If you have questions or requests, email Salt Symposium.
Speaker Presentation Info - 2025
This event is live-stream only.
Morning Sessions
Beginning at: 7:00 AM (All times shown are CDT)
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Connie is recognized as a national expert on salt reduction strategies. With 40 years’ of experience, she began her career in the software design industry before leaving to put her energy into protecting the environment and our waters. In 1996, she founded Fortin Consulting with the goal to unite citizens, environmental organization, and industry leaders in protecting freshwater resources. In the beginning of 2022, Fortin Consulting was acquired by Bolton & Menk, Inc. where Connie has been working on integrating her extensive knowledge on chloride and its impacts into the Bolton & Menk’s repertoire. She enjoys finding ways to facilitate change that is both practical and progressive.
8:10 AM – Chloride Updates, Initiatives, and Funding
Alycia Overbo
Minnesota Department of Health
Alycia supervises the Communications & Strategic Initiatives Unit in the Drinking Water Protection Program at Minnesota Department of Health. She received her PhD from the Water Resources Sciences program at University of Minnesota, where she researched sources of chloride pollution to Minnesota waters. Alycia received her Master of Science in Public Health from UNC-Chapel Hill and Bachelor’s in Biology from St. Olaf College. Her professional and research interests span chloride-related issues and drinking water safety, access, and equity.
8:40 AM – Optimizing Water Softeners for Chloride Reduction
Carolyn Dindorf
Bolton & Menk, Inc.
Carolyn Dindorf is a Limnologist and Supervisor of the Science and Chloride Reduction team at Bolton & Menk. Carolyn’s work revolves around protecting and improving water resources including working with local communities and others to implement chloride reduction strategies and programs for winter maintenance, water softening, and other sources to protect water resources. Carolyn worked with the MPCA and Minnesota Water Quality Association to develop the new Smart Salting for Water Softening training and has partnering with local water conditioning contractors to optimize water softeners for lower salt use.
9:10 AM – Increasing salinization of groundwater in the United States and its secondary effects
Bruce D. Lindsey
U.S. Geological Survey
Bruce Lindsey is a Research Hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and is currently the coordinator of the groundwater component of the National Water Quality Network. Since joining the USGS in 1992, he has led local, regional and national studies focused on groundwater quality. Since 2008, his focus has been on analysis of groundwater quality trends from the national network and managing collection of groundwater quality data for the Nation. Over the past 33 years he has conducted studies and authored reports on a number of local and regional topics related to groundwater quality in aquifers of the United States. His research has improved understanding of issues such as trends in salinity in groundwater, groundwater residence time and nitrate transport to streams in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and the occurrence of bacteria and viruses in drinking water supply wells. In his current assignment he leads the team that is responsible for planning, sampling, and interpretive reporting of the results for groundwater quality studies that sample about 5,000 wells in more than 100 well networks nationwide. This provides him an opportunity to bring a data-driven perspective to monitoring groundwater quality.
9:40 AM | Mid-morning Break
10:00 AM – Storm Severity Index: Leveraging Technology to Reduce Salt Use
Eric Faulkner and Tyler Buerger
Vaisala and City of Oak Creek, WI
10:30 AM – Liquid Anti-icing on Permeable and Asphalt Parking Lot Surfaces
Lorna Murison
Credit Valley Conservation, Ontario
Presenter bio information coming soon.
11:00 AM – Saltwater Intrusion From Land and Sea
Sujay Kaushal
University of Maryland
Presenter bio information coming soon.
11:30 AM – 5 MINUTE UPDATE: Standardizing Winter Maintenance Terminology
Rick Nelson
AASHTO
Presenter bio information coming soon.
11:40 AM | Mid-day Break for Lunch
Afternoon Sessions
Connie is recognized as a national expert on salt reduction strategies. With 40 years’ of experience, she began her career in the software design industry before leaving to put her energy into protecting the environment and our waters. In 1996, she founded Fortin Consulting with the goal to unite citizens, environmental organization, and industry leaders in protecting freshwater resources. In the beginning of 2022, Fortin Consulting was acquired by Bolton & Menk, Inc. where Connie has been working on integrating her extensive knowledge on chloride and its impacts into the Bolton & Menk’s repertoire. She enjoys finding ways to facilitate change that is both practical and progressive.
12:40 PM – Designing Pedestrian Safety Countermeasures for Winter Maintenance
David Veneziano
Iowa State University
David Veneziano is Safety Circuit Rider with the Iowa Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) at the Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University. He has over 18 years of experience in various aspects of transportation research, including winter maintenance safety, operations and equipment, roadway safety and operations, and Intelligent Transportation Systems. In addition, his experience includes outreach and training activities for safety treatments, roadside safety, work zone flagging and safety, and roadway signing and marking.
1:10 PM – Chloride Cycling in Agricultural Cropping Systems
Carl Rosen
University of Minnesota
Carl Rosen is a Professor and Extension Soil Scientist in the Department of Soil, Water, & Climate at the University of Minnesota. He received BS and MS degrees in Horticultural Science from Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. degree in Soil Science from the University of California, Davis. His research and extension programs in Minnesota have focused on water quality issues related to fertilizer use and use of municipal and industrial by-products as amendments for agricultural soils. He has authored or coauthored numerous publications and extension bulletins about nutrient management, soil fertility, soil health, plant nutrition, and beneficial use of by-products for crop production.
1:40 PM | Afternoon Break
2:00 PM – Evaluating Municipal Perspectives on the Influence of Climate Change on Winter Road Maintenance
Wyatt Weatherson
Toronto Metropolitan University, Ontario
Wyatt is a second-year PhD student in the Environmental Applied Science and Management program at Toronto Metropolitan University. A hydrologist by training, part of Wyatt’s doctoral work seeks to combine quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand the perceived and actual drivers of winter deicer use across Ontario. Using key informant interviews, Wyatt seeks to deepen our collective understanding of management and decision-making processes in the winter maintenance industry to identify gaps in knowledge, and inform subsequent quantitative analyses of historical climate trends. The ultimate goal of this work is to understand how changing spatial and temporal temperature and precipitation patterns will influence the extent of deicer use in Canada.
2:30 PM – 5 MINUTE UPDATE: Cold Climate Center of Excellence Update
Andy Erickson
St. Anthony Falls Laboratory, MN
Dr. Andy Erickson is a researcher and engineer at the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. He studies water quality in urban watersheds, develops stormwater assessment and maintenance best practices, and designs innovative stormwater treatment technologies. Andy is co-director of the Cold Climate Center of Excellence for Stormwater Infrastructure Technologies, the Chair of the ASTM International E64 Committee on Stormwater Control Measures, and the Chair for the University of Minnesota’s Water Council. Dr. Erickson is also dedicated to outreach through frequent presentations, workshops, and hosting the popular Minnesota Stormwater Seminar Series
2:40 PM – Winter Salt Week: Raising Awareness Around Salt Pollution and Reduction Solutions
Allison Madison
Wisconsin Salt Wise
Allison Madison is the first-ever staff person at Wisconsin Salt Wise. Since assuming her role in June 2020, she has spearheaded statewide collaboration around salt reduction. Allison graduated from St. Olaf College and has a joint MS. in Environment and Resources and Soil Science from the University of Wisconsin. She’s passionate about protecting Wisconsin’s freshwater resources and celebrating their beauty by paddling, swimming, etc.
3:10 PM – Addressing Chloride Reduction through Education, Collaboration, Funding, and Regulation
Erica Sniegowski & Elizabeth Boor
Nine Mile Creek Watershed District, MN
Erica Sniegowski serves as the Administrator for the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District, a local unit of government located in the Twin Cities metro area. She has been involved in the water resources field for over fifteen years, which has included working to address the chloride TMDL on Nine Mile Creek. As administrator, she oversees district operations, leads the staff team, and manages the annual workplan and strategic direction of the organization. Erica holds a MS in Water Resources Science and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Minnesota. She has a BS in Biology from Iowa State University.
Lizzy’s educational background is in environmental science, geology, and water resources science and she has been lucky enough to put her passion for environmental stewardship into a career. Lizzy is currently working for the Nine Mile Creek Watershed District where she originally started as a Minnesota GreenCorps member focused on chloride reduction through education and outreach in 2020. Chloride education continues to be part of her career at Nine Mile, and she is forging new paths as the watershed district has become the first to have all its cities trained in Low Salt Design principles.
3:40 PM | Conclusions
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