The Delaware County Aquarium Society is bush-league when it comes to this, but our water tests in the area of the springs indicate higher pH and slightly lower hardness. Without further testing, we can only speculate what else may be pouring into the lake via those springs. Run-off from storms and roads and septic systems also are known contributors of undesirable contaminants, and cannot be ignored. The substance was extracted from seawater and used to make the bricks that lined the furnaces of the steel industry. Residents tell of the white dust, flying everywhere at that time, that killed the pines and started on the oaks before the plant was mothballed.
Sea salt can increase the general hardness, but only moderately.
Using the same kit on tap water and on tap water saturated with salt, the general hardness increased from 8 degrees to only 13 degrees. This is a far cry from the 33 degrees of Lake Lily, where the water was not even brackish. Obviously something other than sodium chloride is in the water. Cape May Point, on the southernmost tip of New Jersey, has been battling a beach-erosion problem that is eroding the town. As the sea creeps closer, groundwater wells turn salty and storms wash seawater into the freshwater lakes.