Did you know that improper snow storage and removal practices can damage lake quality?  Snow often contains trash, unwanted nutrients, sediment, salt, sand, and pollutants from vehicles.  When space for snow storage is limited, some businesses and residents may plow snow into wetland and stream areas—some folks may even plow snow right into rivers and lakes!  These practices often cause violations of state water quality rules and degrade the health of our waterbodies.

Landowners are responsible for the snow removal practices that are conducted on their properties. Here are some tips that will help you protect the quality of your lake, while allowing you to “dig-out” after the snowstorms that are surely headed our way:

• Avoid blocking culverts and catch basin inlets, vegetated swales, and stone-lined drainage channels with plowed snow.  Storing snow in these areas can cause flooding.
  
  
• Avoid storing and plowing snow onto bare soil and dirt roads that are unstable or steep.  The ability of these surfaces to absorb snow melt water is very low which could cause soil erosion and polluted stormwater runoff.
  
  
• Plow snow only off of hard surfaces that do not absorb water, such as driveways and walkways.  Do not plow snow off of vegetated areas.
  


• Identify appropriate areas to store snow and communicate this with the plow operator.
  
  • Install markers to identify the locations of planters, soil mounds, and bare soil.
  • Deposit and store snow only in areas that can infiltrate snowmelt such as vegetated areas that are not connected to streams or lakes and are not wet (marshy) part of the year.  If no such snow storage area exists on your property, design an attractive infiltration system adjacent to your driveway that has a low, landscaped berm around it to contain meltwater from plowed snow.
    
    
• As a last resort, have the snow hauled away, but make sure that the snow will be deposited in an appropriate location.

This article was adapted from the Lake Tahoe Report found at www.tahoe.unr.edu.