When Governor Cuomo announced $755 million in regional economic development council awards last week, few communities in Upstate New York fared better than Lake George. Matt Hunter has more on the impact the grants are expected to have on the lake's water quality.

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. – When snow is on the horizon, highway crews in Lake George Village will be treating the roads a little differently this winter. Instead of spreading dry rock salt before and after storms, village workers will apply a mixture known as brine to melt ice or prevent it from forming.

"Brine is simply salt water,” said Dave Wick, executive director of the Lake George Park Commission. “When you apply that to roads, it has the same effect as regular rock salt, but at a lot less volume, so we can reduce the amount applied to roads by about 50 percent."

During last week's New York State Regional Economic Development Council awards, the village received a $200,000 grant for the new de-icing program.

"We are going to have that capability now with this $200,000 grant to produce enough brine to furnish the municipalities around the lake," said Mayor Robert Blais, whose workers will also produce brine for the towns of Lake George, Bolton, Hague and Queensbury.

After watching Lake George's salt levels triple over the past three decades, officials applied for the grant in hopes of protecting its water quality. Much of the salt used on roads ends up in creeks and streams that flow directly into the lake.

"Every single street in the village drains into Lake George," Blais said.

"Salt levels in the streams are so high that they are becoming toxic to fish and the aquatic organisms in those streams," said Wick, who says, despite their increase, salt levels in the lake have yet to reach a dangerous threshold.

Last week's grants did not stop with the de-icing program. One year after receiving $4.7 million toward the cost of a new $20 million wastewater treatment plant, the village received another $2.5 million for that project this year.

"Our plant is 85 years old and it is not working properly,” Blais said. “Some of the treated effluent that we are discharging onto the beds is reaching Lake George itself."

Warren County received $600,000 for efforts to combat invasive species in the lake, mainly Eurasian Water Milfoil.

"You have these massive, dense beds where you can’t swim in it, you can’t recreate, you can’t fish, it is very difficult to go boating," Wick said of the invasive weed that tends to “outcompete” other aquatic plants growing nearby.

Despite the region's billion-dollar tourism economy, Lake George Village has an annual budget of only $5 million. Blais says the grants provide money they'd never be able to raise on their own.

"We are very grateful they recognize the value of Lake George to the entire state of New York,” Blais said.