Human activities are increasing dissolved salt concentrations in freshwater ecosystems, contributing to freshwater salinization. In urban environments, research on salinization has become a focal point regarding the sources of salt inputs to streams and rivers. Urban development alters stream structure through channelization, the construction of retention ponds, and the burial of streams, thereby modifying natural flow paths. However, the influence of stream flow modification on dissolved salts is not well addressed in the context of freshwater salinization. Here, we evaluated how urban heterogeneity influences dissolved salts within an urbanized stream network. To do this, we deployed high-frequency water level, temperature, and conductivity sensors at the two inlets and the outlet of a retention pond within Stroubles Creek in Blacksburg, VA, and collected surface water samples to analyze for major ions from May 2023 to December 2024. We used specific conductivity (SpC) as an integrative metric of salinization to compare sites, identify which dissolved salts contributed the most to total SpC, and evaluate the influence of water level on SpC dynamics. Our preliminary results identified Cl-, Ca2+, and Mg2+ as the major contributors to SpC among sites (> 20%), while reactive salts such as NO3- and PO42- contributed < 5 %. The retention pond buffered SpC’s response to water level at the outlet and increases in water level generally diluted SpC among all sites. Major ion contributions of Cl-, Ca2+, and Mg2+ are associated with impervious surfaces and road salts. Analyses of dissolved salts among sites found that NO3-, PO42-, and Mg2+ were different (p < 0.05) and lower at the outlet compared to either inlet, suggesting net removal within the retention pond, potentially due to biological uptake and/or water-sediment interactions. Future work will focus on evaluating the effects of seasonality and water level on ionic contributions to SpC to assess how dissolved salts in our system may be changing, and its implications for water quality and ecosystem function.