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ANNAPOLIS — Doctors have long told patients with high blood pressure to get salt out of their diets.

Now, salt — a staple of storm cleanup for years — could become an unwelcome presence on Maryland road surfaces, as well.

A bill introduced in the General Assembly on Wednesday, at the height of the state's second blizzard in less than a week, targets the potentially harmful effects of road salt on drinking water and the environment.

The bill would require transportation authorities around the state, including the State Highway Administration, to develop plans for managing the use and storage of road salt.

The legislation also calls for road agencies to identify environmentally sensitive areas, including areas where road runoff could contaminate sources of drinking water, and to craft plans for using alternatives to salt.

SHA is already experimenting with alternatives.

This winter, the state launched a pilot program, deploying trucks in Howard and Frederick counties with 1,200 gallons of sugar beet molasses mixed with 8,000 gallons of salt brine.

"The molasses makes the viscosity thicker and reduces the scatter so it's not going all over the place, which preserves our salt supply," said Charlie Gischlar, an SHA spokesman.

The environmentally friendly mixture also is less corrosive to equipment than road salt and is effective at colder temperatures.

The state purchased 6,000 gallons of sugar beet molasses at $2.17 per gallon and will evaluate its effectiveness for possible expanding use next winter.

An agricultural byproduct of pressing sugar beets for commercial grade sugar, molasses has been used for nearly a decade on roadways in other states, including Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, Ohio and Virginia, and in Washington, D.C.

Stuck behind a road crew of salt trucks fanned three-lanes-across on a recent drive, Del. Benjamin F. Kramer said he saw firsthand the need for the legislation. Gaps in the trucks' tailgates scattered salt haphazardly, including in big piles when the trucks stopped.

"Not only is it a huge waste, a costly waste, but we are dumping huge amounts of rock salt," said Kramer (D-Dist. 19) of Derwood, who is sponsoring the bill in the House. His sister, Sen. Rona E. Kramer (D-Dist. 14) of Olney, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate.

Salt long has been used as an ice-melting agent on roads. Rock and solar salt — sodium chloride — is the principal material used by SHA, which purchased 332,618 tons for the winter 2009-2010 as part of a $26 million budget that the state has well exceeded with the unprecedented snowfalls.

SHA had used about 266,000 tons, roughly 80 percent of its total purchase for the winter, before the latest storm and was receiving shipments to the Port of Baltimore and from other states.

While researchers have monitored salt concentrations in groundwater and tributaries for decades, recent years have brought several studies of the potentially harmful environmental side effects of road salt on the environment.

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 found that the use of rock salt, or NaCl, on U.S. roads has "skyrocketed" in the past 65 years to 18 million metric tons, "and chloride (Cl) concentration in waters of the northeast have (sic) risen as a consequence."

That has led to potential problems, including "toxicity to plants and fish, groundwater contamination and human health interactions, particularly salt intake and hypertension," the study found.

A 2008 study of water samples taken from Minebank Run, near the Baltimore Beltway, showed that water downstream of the interstate had "significantly greater" surface water salinity than upstream of the Beltway.

The water contained concentrations of sodium and chloride that would make it unfit for drinking, and the amount increased significantly between November 2001 and April 2008.

While Minebank Run is not a drinking water source, "its quality may be indicative of surrounding watersheds that fill the Loch Raven Reservoir," the study concluded.

SHA trains drivers through its "Snow College" each summer on how and where to apply salt, Gischlar said.

"We are cognizant of sensitive environmental areas where we're not spreading as heavily or as frequently," he said.

Other states are looking at the issue.

A bill being considered by the New Hampshire legislature this month would require snow-removal companies that use salt to pay a $100 fee to become certified with the state Department of Environmental Services.

Last week, a committee of the New Hampshire House of Representatives recommended an interim study of the bill.

The Salt Institute, a trade association of salt companies, pushed for the interim study, saying that while the group supported "sensible salting," the bill raised questions about whether a certification program was the best solution.

The institute "discourages regulators or legislators from taking the decision making away from snow fighters" who know the how best to maintain safe roadways, said Lori Roman, executive vice president for the Salt Institute.

"Salt provides the greatest safety and the greatest value for budgets that are already stretched thin," she said in an interview.

The Kramers' bill echoes a call by researchers who say policymakers need to begin considering freshwater pollution from road salt.

Another 2005 study published in PNAS concluded "that salinization associated with increasing suburban and urbanization deserves attention as one of the most significant threats to the integrity of freshwater ecosystems in the northeastern United States."

"Now is the time to make people aware that we can't indiscriminately apply salt without there being some environmental consequences," said William P. Stack, chief of surface water management for Baltimore city and a co-author of the study.