I am a Senior Research Scientist for the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute and this is one of several pieces made for a project called Wool and Water.

Wool and Water is a data art project that blends fiber art with scientific data to create visual representations of changing water quality conditions in the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Basin. In association with the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, the Paul Smith’s College Adirondack Watershed Institute has embarked on a collaborative fiber arts project supported by the Champlain Valley National Heritage Partnership to showcase the legacy of protecting clean water in the Lake Champlain Basin and beyond.

Widespread use of road salt over the last several decades has increased significantly the concentration of sodium and chloride in the environment. Many lakes in the Adirondacks now exhibit chloride concentrations many times higher than background levels and AWI estimates that 72% of lakes participating in our Adirondack Lake Assessment Program are influenced by road salt. Road salt can result in a variety of impacts to human and wildlife health, particularly in near road environments that receive direct runoff such as roadside streams or vernal pools. This knitted frog illustrates the implications of road salt for amphibian communities. The rows of beads on his back correspond to the increasing chloride concentrations in Rich Lake (Newcomb, NY) between 2001 and 2018.

Data: Laxson et al. 2019 https://www.adkwatershed.org/sites/default/files/alap_201...