Due to heavy snowfall throughout Turkey this year, snow is being collected by local municipalities and public institutions to be dumped into lakes and other bodies of water. While this practice is hailed for cleaning snow off of streets and boosting water levels of drought-stricken lakes, it is actually quite hazardous for the environment, a Turkish expert said.

Several municipalities near Lake Van in eastern Turkey and near the Meke, Eğirdir and Beyşehir lakes in central Turkey announced over the past weeks that they were dumping truckloads of snow into lakes and riverbeds.

However, Erol Kesici, a lake specialist and an adviser for the Nature Protection Society of Turkey, told Demirören News Agency (DHA) that the chemicals and salt used to remove snow are poisoning water supplies.

“The acids, aggregate (one of the basic materials that make up concrete together with cement and water) and similar mixed salt types that are used on the roads for the removal of snow and the transfer of snow to the lakes and ponds to increase the water level of drinking water sources are threatening our health and production,” he highlighted.

He added that to reduce the amount of salt, solvents that use ingredients such as starch, sugar and liquid waste from sugar and beverage factories, which naturally contain small amounts of natural salt, can be used to prevent and dissolve ice safely.

Even though salt is widely used and important in preventing icy roads that can lead to traffic accidents, Kesici says that even though the financial cost of more environmentally friendly mixtures parallels salt, the natural options are much cheaper when the potential ecological damage is considered.