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Earth's salt cycle is swinging out of balance, posing yet another “existential threat," study finds (msn.com)

It is not pleasant to imagine that human activity is making the planet uninhabitable, but we typically think of this in terms of greenhouse gases, rising sea levels or acidifying the oceans. We aren't typically concerned with how salty things are.

Yet a recent study published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment identifies a wealth of industrial activities from construction and agriculture to water and road treatment as making the planet Earth too salty — literally.

"There is a need to identify environmental limits and thresholds for salt ions and reduce salinization before planetary boundaries are exceeded, causing serious or irreversible damage across Earth systems," the study authors report, arriving at their conclusion following a systematic review of existing studies on Earth's natural salt cycle and how it has been accelerated by human activities.

They warn of an “existential threat”  that could lead to a problem known as freshwater salinization syndrome, or a condition in which traditionally un-salted water is suddenly filled with the stuff. Freshwater salinization syndrome can make the water uninhabitable to creatures that previously called it home and, similarly, render it unusable for human consumption.

“If you think of the planet as a living organism, when you accumulate so much salt it could affect the functioning of vital organs or ecosystems,” University of Maryland geology professor Sujay Kaushal, who holds a joint appointment in UMD’s Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, said in a press statement. “Removing salt from water is energy intensive and expensive, and the brine byproduct you end up with is saltier than ocean water and can’t be easily disposed of.”

This phenomenon was described by the authors as an "anthropogenic salt cycle" that is managing to supersede and hyper fuel nature's much slower salt cycle, during which salt ions are gradually brought to the surface by geological and hydrological processes. This is in stark contrast to humans forcing salts like calcium, potassium, magnesium and sulfate ions to the surface on a regular basis thanks to practices like mining and land development.

When most people think of salt, they tend to think of sodium chloride, the same stuff as table salt.

"But our work over the years has shown that we’ve disturbed other types of salts, including ones related to limestone, gypsum and calcium sulfate,” Kaushal said in the press statement. These salt ions are being dislodged in such large amounts that, according to the new study, human-caused salinization is affecting approximately 2.5 billion acres of soil around the world — an area roughly the size of the United States. And that only accounts for the land itself; salt ions also increased in rivers and streams over the last 50 years, which is consistent with global patterns in salt production and consumption.

“Twenty years ago, all we had were case studies. We could say surface waters were salty here in New York or in Baltimore’s drinking water supply,” study co-author Gene Likens, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, said in the press statement. “We now show that it’s a cycle — from the deep Earth to the atmosphere — that’s been significantly perturbed by human activities.”

When the study's authors refer to "planetary boundaries," they are utilizing a concept that has appeared in other academic literature. Earth has a number of physical limits that exist in terms of being able to support life, and scientists repeatedly warn that those planetary boundaries are in danger of being exceeded. A September study in the journal Science Advances demonstrated that humans are putting Earth in dangerous territory with six of its planetary boundaries. These include land system change, freshwater change, climate change, biosphere integrity, the flows of biological and geological chemicals and novel entities like plastics, pesticides and industrial chemicals.

"We can think of the Earth's resources as the currency that supports us," the study's lead author Dr. Katherine Richardson, professor in Biological Oceanography at the University of Copenhagen's Sustainability Science Centre told Salon at the time. "The planetary boundaries framework is like a bank statement — it tells us how much of various components (resources) of the Earth system we can allow ourselves to us without greatly increasing the risk that our activities will lead to dramatic and potentially irreversible changes in the overall environmental conditions we experience on Earth."

As humans continue to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, they trap heat and cause our planet to unnaturally warm. This is why a recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Ii global temperatures increase by at least 1 degree Celsius, temperatures will rise so much that billions of people will every year confront heat so intense their bodies will be unable to naturally cool themselves. This explains why climate change is such an important issue, but it's also far from the only one. Every resource we consume comes at a cost, and that include even simple things like salt.

LETTER: Like swimming in Lake Simcoe? Then we need to use less road salt - Innisfil News (innisfiltoday.ca)

Salt in freshwater can create multiple issues, says Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition executive director

Letter to the Editorabout 19 hours ago

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InnisfilToday welcomes letters to the editor at chris@innisfiltoday.ca or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). InnisfilToday received the following letter regarding the amount of salt entering the watershed and its implications on swimming.

The surest sign of a summer well-lived is a wet towel by the lake. What is not to love about summer swimming after Canada’s long winters when the water isn’t even wet? To preserve what we love will take some effort, but we know it’s worth it.

As you paddle, swim, fish and sail through your summer days, consider that despite winter being long over, winter road salt is still in our waters. Most people don’t know why this matters.

Combined with warmer waters, excess salt contributes to conditions favourable to the growth of algae. Freshwater fish cannot adapt to living in salt water, but more importantly, an increased salt concentration in water can influence the dynamics of food webs, including the tiny little aquatic critters that fish eat. 

Lake Simcoe is on an upward trend for road salt concentrations. Ontario’s 10-year report on Lake Simcoe says, “The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority have measured chloride since 1971 at Atherley Narrows (where the water flows out of Lake Simcoe to the north) and since 2000 at stations in the lake. Chloride concentrations have increased significantly at Atherley Narrows and averaged across the lake.

The lake-wide chloride concentration in 2012 was 44 mg/L, and in 2018 it was 52 mg/L...If this rate continues, Lake Simcoe will reach the chronic threshold level by 2058; the chronic threshold is the maximum concentration of chloride before constant exposure could affect sensitive aquatic life. This would be 11 years earlier than previously predicted due to a higher rate of increase.” 

This should be something we can fix, and indeed, it is. Right now, eight community and environmental groups from Sudbury to Niagara are campaigning together for change through the new Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition. The opportunity at the moment is for citizens to support Landscape Ontario’s Snow and Ice Sector Group discussions with the government for limited liability protection and Sector Best Management Practice. This proposed package of reforms would allow the sector to do a better job, using less salt.  Indeed, it’s the risk of slip-and-fall lawsuits that is largely responsible for the over-application of salt. 

While the community and environmental groups are aiming for increased protection for freshwater, we know a great opportunity when we see it. So, join the movement, and sign the petition to protect what matters.

Claire Malcolmson
Executive Director, Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition

Road salt usage down across Muskoka: Misko - Huntsville Doppler (doppleronline.ca)

A number of factors appear to have come together to reduce the amount of salt used on local roads throughout the winter months.

This week, Mark Misko, the District of Muskoka Director of Engineering and Transportation, put together a report on annual road salt usage that shows positive trends.

Misko indicated tonnages of road salt have trended downward over the past few years. He attributes the decline to significant operational changes and implementing incremental opportunities for improvement

“Work will continue to refine processes, procedures and investigating new technology as it becomes available in the market,” says Misko in his report.

Misko says District staff continue to work with the area municipalities to determine what additional methods and controls can be implemented.

“For example, Bracebridge has included directliquid application (DLA) as one of their treatment methods to reduce ice accumulation,” says Misko. “Gravenhurst, through a combined procurement effort, has included pre-treated salt within their sand stockpiles to assist in surface adhesion when applied.”

Miskoka says road sale salt usage fluctuates based on winter storm severity,  but implementing industry best practices has helped to reduce the amount of salt used on the road network.

In October of 2020 the Friends of the Muskoka Watershed (FOTW) published The Road Salt Threat to Muskoka Lakes, which revealed a correlation between chloride levels in some of Muskoka Lakes and their relative location with respect to major highways.

FOTW launched a testing program last year to look into the effects of road salt on local lakes. The group said once the data is gathered to determine how chloride enters the lakes, the next step is to find solutions and modifications which can involve the whole community.

In his report Misko maintains that rock salt continues to be an effective de-icer and is the most widely used product in North America due to its fast melting action and its ready availability in the area. Road salt is generally very effective from 0ºC to approximately -10ºC, he says. Its effectiveness is enhanced by frictional forces as well as surface temperatures. Alternatives to rock salt have been considered, however, all available options have their own unique pros and cons.

Reducing salt amounts for de-icing must be stepped up to protect groundwater: researcher - Turf & Rec (turfandrec.com)

Groundwater and lakes in Ontario are becoming saltier, and the need to reduce road salt use during the winter months is something that can’t wait, researchers from the University of Waterloo say.

Many landscape contractors who provide snow and ice services during the winter use salt to keep parking lots, driveways and sidewalks free of ice, but the downside is that salt is making its way into groundwater and surface water bodies. In surface water, increased salt levels leads to oxygen depletion.

Philippe Van Cappellen, a professor and researcher at the University of Waterloo, says municipalities must monitor their road sale use and strive to reduce amounts by 25 per cent over the next five years.

Some contractors have tried alternative forms of de-icing agents, including beet juice.

Having trouble finding road salt on the Avalon Peninsula? Here's why (yahoo.com)

Winter hasn't slipped away just yet, but some living on Newfoundland and Labrador's Avalon Peninsula have found it difficult to locate one of the season's hottest commodities — road salt.

The culprit? Tens of thousands of faulty road salt bags, says Morgan Winter, vice-president of Avalon Coal Salt and Oil.

The Bay Roberts company provides a lot of the province's salt, typically found at gas stations and grocery stores in large, bright orange bags.

This year, Winter says, he thought he had his business's inventory in the bag. But it turns out he was sandbagged by the company's manufacturer.

He says the company discovered in the fall that it had been supplied tens of thousands of faulty 10-kilogram bags. Winter estimates the faulty bags made up about 50 per cent of what the company ideally likes to have in its inventory.

When the company went back to its supplier, says Winter, it discovered the lead time to get new salt bags would be longer than anticipated. Although the company also sells five-kilogram and 20-kilogram salt bags, Winter says the 10-kilogram bags are their best seller.

Submitted by George Warford

"If I don't have a bag to put the salt in, that slows down everything," said Winter. "We pretty much sold through everything we had in inventory, I want to say, two or three weeks ago."

"We don't operate that way. Normally we would have a 50 to 75 per cent cushion on what we would sell."

For those on the hunt for salt, Winter says 20-kilogram salt bags may be available at large retailers and hardware stores, and he even suggests seeking salt from his competitors.

The best places to go for salt are large building centres like Home Hardware, Kent and Home Depot, he said, as salt is likely in low supply at many gas stations.

Winter looks at this year's supply shortage as a learning lesson, one that can help prevent future slip-ups.

"We will be pre-ordering in April, and I would think we'll start ordering a two years' worth of inventory at a time just to get ahead of this problem."

Salt has been mined in Windsor for more than 130 years. Will climate change shift that? | CBC News

Last week, the owner of a Windsor mine that produces road salt laid off 150 people. The company said warmer weather meant less demand for road salt, and thus they would be idling production.

So how might climate change impact the salt mining industry?

Peter Crank, an urban geographer, climatologist and professor at the University of Waterloo, says it's not time to panic just yet.

While it's challenging to predict the weather conditions of the next few winters, Crank says snowier winters than this one might be in store for southern Ontario.

Crank spoke with CBC Radio's Windsor Morning host Amy Dodge. Here is part of their conversation.

How would you classify the winter we just had? 

This past winter has been exceptionally warm here for us in southern Ontario. We haven't had quite as much snow as we typically tend to see here in this part of Canada.

What should we expect when it comes to winter weather because of the climate change in the years and the decades to come?

One of the things that makes this a really tricky question, particularly for us to answer, is that climate and weather aren't always perfectly in sync.

One of my colleagues back in the U.S., Marshall Shepherd, [says] climate is like our personality, but weather is like our mood. Maybe we're a really optimistic person. That doesn't necessarily mean that every single day we're going to walk into work or into our home and have a positive mentality. The weather is oftentimes like that. It changes much more quickly, whereas climate tends to be a bit more stable.

A long line of trucks waiting for a load of salt at the Ojibway Mine in Windsor, Ont. (Dale Molnar/CBC)

If we think about Ontario and our winters coming up in the next decades, we can certainly expect to see some warmer winters. But there also is a good chance that we'll see some colder winters that will have just as much snow as we used to have.

And what difference would warmer, less snowy weather make when it comes to how much salt is needed for city streets and highways?

So if we see a decrease in snow, then we might need less salt to make sure that our roads are safe within the city.

One of the challenges that we find here in southern Ontario is that if our temperatures warm, that means that the Great Lakes don't freeze over, which means that we could see lake effect snow for longer periods in the first half of the winter. And if they never freeze over, there's always a threat for lake effect. So that could result in us having more snow, even, as the climate warms.

I'm also wondering how this ties into the salt industry, at least for ice melting purposes. Do we expect the industry to decline?

This is [happening] not just with salt mining, but in a lot of different sectors within society. They're utilizing climate science to support decision making.

This, I think, is going to become a case-by-case basis, where economies, sectors and individual businesses are going to have to really start to talk more with climatologists, learning the specifics of their location as well as their sector within the economy to begin to make these decisions.

It may be something where, in the future we see climatologists and other climate change experts being either hired to be able to make these decisions.

Right now, it's hard to say what the future will look like in terms of the use of salt. But these are definitely things that companies are considering.

There's also been quite a bit of study about the harmful environmental effects of road salt. Might this be an upside of climate change if less is used?

We typically think of [climate change] in negative terms, and there certainly are a lot of negative impacts from climate change. 

However, that certainly could have benefits to our water quality here in southern Ontario, as well as potentially creating fewer potholes, which means we don't have to repair our roads as often. We may see longer growing seasons as well.

But we certainly cannot forget that there are still negative impacts and that there are lots of other places across the globe that are being more negatively impacted than here in Canada.

Road salt lowers the risk of deadly collisions—but it’s also killing Halifax’s lakes. What’s the answer? | News | Halifax, Nova Scotia | THE COAST

As Halifax heaves a final sigh of winter this weekend—with up to 20 centimetres of wet and heavy snow expected to fall—the city’s contracted road and sidewalk crews will, almost assuredly, be waiting for one last call to spring into action, plows, shovels and piles of salt at the ready. It’s been a busy winter for them: Halifax endured historic snowstorms in January and February, turning boulevards into six-foot snow banks and streets into slippery messes. That has come at a cost—and not just to your back for all the shovelling. A growing body of research suggests that HRM’s most-used de-icing tool—road salt—is harming life in our watershed. And the degree to which road salt is affecting our lakes’ health is reaching levels we haven’t seen before. One in five Halifax lakes has high chloride levels, study finds Last spring, researchers at Dalhousie University’s Centre for Water Resource Studies shared a landmark report drawing on six years of water samples collected from 57 lakes across the HRM. Municipal staff collected the samples three times a year between 2006 and 2011. The findings paint a stark picture: Nearly one in five of the surveyed lakes—including Lake Banook, Chocolate Lake and Russell Lake—exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure to chloride, while another 15% were considered at “high risk” for reaching the exposure threshold. (The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment says that once a freshwater body reaches 120 milligrams of chloride per litre over longer periods, aquatic life—including fish species, invertebrates and freshwater plants—begins to fall under threat. But some researchers are starting to believe that threshold could be as much as three times lower.) Bermarija et al., 2023. "Assessing and predicting Lake Chloride Concentrations in the Lake-Rich Urbanizing Halifax Region, Canada." Journal of Hydrology. Dalhousie researchers surveyed samples from 57 lakes in a six-year period and found nearly one in five exceeded federal guidelines for chronic exposure to chloride. That’s a concern, according to Rob Jamieson. The Dalhousie professor—who supervised the 2023 report—is one of Atlantic Canada’s foremost researchers into water quality. Speaking by phone with The Coast one winter morning, he says there’s a “whole suite of effects” that begin when salt is introduced into a lake. “Some freshwater species… just cannot tolerate increasing levels of salt within the water body,” he tells The Coast, “and what we’re seeing is that increased salt levels really impacts certain components of the food web quite significantly.” Take zooplankton, for example: One of the bottom rungs of the aquatic food chain, the mini-crustaceans feed on phytoplankton—plant bacteria, more or less—and serve as food to a bevy of small fish and big bugs. (Winnipeg-based lake scientist Michael Paterson has called the species the “centre of the open-water food web” of most lakes.) If zooplankton die earlier and reproduce in fewer numbers in saltier lakes—as research suggests—that begins to create “knock-on effects all throughout the aquatic food web,” Jamieson says. Like a Jenga tower, enough pieces pulled from the bottom will send the whole thing tumbling. Then, there’s the health of the water itself at issue. Research has shown high chloride levels can hinder lakes’ self-circulating ability, creating tiers of dense, salt-rich water at the bottom of lakes that can’t replenish with oxygen from the atmosphere. While in ordinary circumstances, a lake will “turn over” twice a year—in spring and fall—too much chloride can delay or “completely stop” the process, Jamieson tells The Coast. Ben MacLeod (CC BY-SA 4.0) Chocolate Lake is among 11 Halifax-area lakes identified as exceeding recommended chloride levels, according to a 2023 Dalhousie study. “You end up with the salty layers of water that are at the bottom of the lake, and they're not getting back up to the surface,” Jamieson adds. “And so they’re just sitting there, [and] all the oxygen is being depleted from those bodies of water.” That causes its own raft of issues. (Fish, as with many life forms, need oxygen to live.) “But also,” Jamieson says, “when you have anoxic water sitting at the bottom of the lake, it causes some geochemical reactions that release certain other contaminants from the bottom of lakes… things like phosphorus, things like arsenic.” Long-term study finds urban development a high predictor for salt levels in lakes Dalhousie’s 2023 study is far from the first or longest-running to link the effects of de-icing salt with Halifax’s changing lakes. For 35 years, former Dal professor Rick Scott followed the health of nine lakes throughout the HRM, before and after surrounding neighbourhoods underwent development. He started in 1982 and carried on until 2017. Scott’s 2019 paper, published in the Journal of Environmental Management, stands alone for its longitudinal work. Among its more salient findings are that urban development is the “most significant explanatory variable” for chloride levels, and—more troublingly—that chloride lasts in Halifax’s lakes long after the region’s roads have been salted and washed away by the rain. If a lake is like a Jenga tower, then chloride might best be described as turmeric in a kitchen, or dog hair on a couch: Once it’s there, it’s not going away anytime soon. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the longest-lasting effects can be found in watersheds when salt doesn’t wash right into a lake. When salt runoff makes its way from Halifax’s roads into forests or grasslands before ending up in the groundwater, Jamieson says, it’s possible to see higher chloride levels “for months, and sometimes even years, depending on how long it takes for that salt to travel through those hydrologic pathways.” All of which poses a rather meaty—or in this case, briny—question: What the heck do we do about salt? What do we do about road salt? Councillors Sam Austin and Shawn Cleary are both well acquainted with the delicate health of Halifax’s urban lakes. As councillors for Dartmouth Centre and Halifax West Armdale, respectively, the two live in—and represent—two of the most lake-rich areas in Halifax’s urban core. (Those same districts also include some of the lakes most under threat from too much salt.) And while neither would claim to be a biologist—“as a councillor, you find yourself being a generalist in everything and an expert on nothing,” Austin tells The Coast—both have found themselves caught up in Halifax’s internal tug-of-war over how to protect the region’s urban lakes. In Cleary’s district, community efforts to protect Williams Lake led to the creation of the Shaw Wilderness Park—even if it made the Shaw Group millions in the process—and in Dartmouth’s Oathill Lake neigbourhood, Austin has played troubleshooter for keeping road salt levels low while maintaining a salted walking path on Lorne Avenue, which has no sidewalk of its own. Nature Conservancy of Canada Part of Halifax's magic is that wild places like Williams Lake exist near urban spaces. “Where we have lakes that are still vibrant, we want to keep them as vibrant as possible for as long as possible,” Cleary says, speaking by phone with The Coast. Even still, it’s a balancing act: In Halifax’s winters—shorter though they may be—it only takes one overnight freeze after a bit of wet snow to upend our city’s fragile transportation network. In December 2016, the RCMP responded to 40 car crashes in the Halifax area on a single snowy day. A three-car crash in 2020 shut down the Macdonald Bridge. “You have to keep people safe,” Cleary adds. “You can’t have vehicles sliding around on the road, and you can’t have people slipping on the sidewalks.” Related Weekend snowstorm hammers Halifax, rest of Nova Scotia: Expect more flurries through Monday, with winds gusting to 50 kilometres per hour as a cut-off low sits above the HRM. Road salt has become almost a given in Canada in 2024. In use since the 1940s, it has proven popular for one simple reason: It works. By lowering the freezing point of water, road salt allows ice to melt in otherwise below-freezing temperatures. Canadians go through around five million tonnes every year. But it’s not without dangers: Environment and Climate Change Canada labeled it a “toxic substance” as far back as 2001. Road salt is corrosive. And beyond its harmful effects on freshwater ecosystems, it’s a pain in the ass on our roads, sidewalks and cars. “That’s another thing people often don’t consider,” Cleary says. “When you’re using salt, you’re degrading the concrete and asphalt, you’re degrading people’s vehicles as they’re driving around on salted roads, and especially on pedestrian-oriented main streets—I think of Quinpool—where you have buildings [opening onto the sidewalk], you’re corroding steel doors and windows and other things.” Martin Bauman / The Coast The Ardmore Tea Room co-owner Kelly Cormier shovels snow in front of her Quinpool Road diner on Jan. 29, 2024. It’s not as if alternatives don’t exist. Sand is another possibility, Austin says, but there are drawbacks: Even in sand, there’s still a small amount of salt—“because as you mix it together, if you just have sand, and then you have the humidity in the sand, it clumps together. And it doesn’t actually give you the grip that you need on the road.” It also tends to blow away. Brine is another solution, which the HRM already uses—and which Jamieson endorses. When it’s sprayed on roads before a snowstorm, it can help to reduce the need for heavier salting. As a bonus, it doesn’t have as much of a long-term negative effect as coarse salt. But smaller though the harm may be, it’s still there. Which raises another question: As far back as 2015, HRM council resolved to have staff investigate alternative de-icers. So what happened? The council debate 2015 was a doozy of a winter in Halifax. Hammonds Plains saw as much as 74 centimetres of snow after one March blizzard. The HRM banned on-street parking indefinitely until it could widen the roads. Snowboarders took to the streets in Dartmouth. It was in that same winter that then-councillor Linda Mosher brought forward a motion to direct staff to “consider evaluating the best practices for management of our streets during icing conditions when salt does not work.” Related Beet juice and cheese brine could season Halifax's icy roads: Council may investigate organic alternatives to rock salt.
 “My concern is that as global warming continues, and what we’re being told are atypical winters may become the new normal … it would be great if best practices and strategies from other cities could be evaluated,” Mosher told her colleagues at HRM council’s Feb. 24, 2015 meeting. Mosher pointed to the successes of solutions like beet juice, cheese brine, pickle brine and sugar-cane molasses as worthy of a look. Of those four, beet juice—which, like salt, lowers the freezing point of water, but unlike salt, is both non-corrosive and non-toxic—has seen the most traction, to pardon the pun. Saint John’s Harbour Bridge Authority introduced beet juice as a de-icer back in 2005—and, for the first time, saw no crashes from slippery roads in both January and February. By 2010, Montreal and Transport Quebec were experimenting with the sugary compound. Toronto had adopted a beet-juice blend in 2014. Photo: VV Nincic via Flickr (CC BY 2.0). The City of Toronto introduced a beet-juice blend into its winter road maintenance program in 2014. Council agreed with Mosher’s proposal. And the HRM’s Winter Operations crew did eventually test beet juice, a municipal spokesperson tells The Coast. But—in a Simpsons “Bolivian Tree Lizard”-esque scenario—the sugary solution created a different problem: It “attracted many rodents,” the spokesperson says. (Bring in the Chinese needle snakes!) Plus, the beet juice was sticking to people’s shoes and ending up in their homes. Some studies have also found that a few freshwater species—mayflies, in particular—don’t respond well to the higher levels of potassium in beets. So where does that leave us? Switching salt diet for a road diet There may be no perfect solution for clearing Halifax’s roads—not without significant expense, in any case. (The city could, in theory, hire more crews to plow streets and sidewalks around the clock, scraping down to the pavement after each snowfall, but that would come with a price tag.) But there’s another possibility to explore: If Halifax can’t curb its salt use, it could extend its curbs. If, broadly speaking, the aim of road salt is road safety, then the HRM could take a page from what the University of North Carolina’s highway safety research Libby Thomas calls “one of the transportation safety field’s greatest success stories” and reclaim space from its widened collector roads and arterials for things like larger public parks, permanent patios and protected bike lanes. (Imagine, say, a genuinely car-free Spring Garden Road.) It only takes looking at Halifax after a snowfall to see how much road space could be repurposed. Victoria Walton/The Coast When it snows, the part of the road that cars actually use is exposed—and a lot more space for pedestrians, too. Research shows that when cities allocate less space to cars on their roads, crashes decrease. More investment into public spaces would support the HRM’s Integrated Mobility Plan aims of “prioritizing the movement of people over vehicles” and “creating links between people and communities.” And while wider sidewalks and bike lanes would still need to be cleared of snow, every lane of road reclaimed for other uses is less salt winding up in Halifax’s lakes. Idealistic? Maybe. Halifax is taking small steps in that direction: The HRM slimmed down part of Prince Albert Road in an effort to slow traffic, improve stormwater drainage in the area and make it more walkable. The municipality could do with more of it—even if councillor Austin doubts a full-scale road diet is on the horizon. “Does that change the water on the beans, as they say? I don’t think it does,” he tells The Coast. “Not in our current societal movement, anyway.” But here’s the thing about movements: They’re not all that different from lakes, in the end. It just takes one ripple to spread.

Demand for road and safety salt drops | Windsor Star

An unseasonably warm winter resulted in Windsor Salt laying off 150 workers on Tuesday due to a lack of demand for products produced from its Windsor mining operations.

Windsor Salt announced that the layoffs are indefinite and the firm will monitor market conditions to determine when to resume production. The company, owned by Los Angeles-based Stone Canyon Industries, plans to retain 18 clerical employees.

In a public statement, a spokesperson for the company said it was idling its Ojibway mine due to the mild weather this winter leading to a softening demand for road salt and safety salt bags. The mine also produces agricultural salt for animal seed.

The Ojibway mine is one of two locations operated by Windsor Salt locally since 1893. Canada’s largest producer of salt also produces finer salt for consumption.

The company said Windsor’s evaporative salt plant is not affected by the layoffs.

Between the two sites, there are about 250 employees at the west-end Windsor operation.

The layoffs come only seven months after the company and Unifor Locals 1959 and 240 settled a 192-day strike last August. Union officials were not immediately available for comment.

Industry group joins environmentalists asking Ontario for new laws to reduce road salt | CBC News

An industry group representing contractors who salt icy roads and parking lots is joining environmentalists in asking for new regulations to protect ecosystems and waterways from salinated runoff.

Landscape Ontario, which represents about 1,200 snow and ice management contractors, says its members' desire to use less salt is stymied by legislation that holds contractors liable for injuries such as slips and falls.

Joe Salemi, Landscape Ontario's executive director who lives in Hamilton, says many of the same contractors who work in horticulture in the summer, planting trees, shrubs and gardens, do ice and snow contracting in the winter, laying salt they know negatively impacts plants and the environment. 

"It's an awful situation where we just want to be good stewards but in the winter, that all just goes out the window," Salemi told CBC Hamilton this week. "It comes down to liability."

He said that the way current legislation is written, any liability for ice and snow-related injury claims falls on the snow removal contractor.

"Invariably what happens is the snow and ice contractor uses way more salt than they need to because they are fearful, or the property manager puts pressure on them to use more salt than they need to," Salemi said.

"Some contractors put down so much salt. Often the salt itself becomes a hazard."

Joe Salemi, Landscape Ontario’s executive director, left, shakes hands with Premier Doug Ford on Oct. 24, 2023. The group was at Queen's Park to lobby for better regulation and reduced liability for snow and ice clearing contractors. (Landscape Ontario/Aisha Shaikh)

His group would like the legislation changed so contractors and property managers share the liability, but is also proposing the creation of an oversight body for the industry that would require contractors to have training and accreditation, including related to salt use.

Ideally, he says, the contractors who became accredited could then be held harmless from liability claims, something that would have the added benefit of keeping more contractors in an industry struggling with dwindling numbers due to increased slip and fall claims and insurance costs.

"Oversalting puts our natural environment at risk, and it will continue unless legislative changes are made to regulate the industry and address the liability concerns," states a document circulated by Landscape Ontario entitled A Call for Change. "Oversalting will harm our freshwater systems, drinking water, vegetation, and wildlife."

New Ontario coalition calls for 'urgent action'

The organization's calls parallel those by environmental groups asking the province to protect Ontario's fresh water from increasing salt runoff and "chloride pollution."

A newly-formed group, the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition, wrote to Environment, Conservation and Parks Minister Andrea Khanjin on March 22 — World Water Day — asking the government to "undertake urgent action" to create water quality standards, regulation and enforcement to protect the Great Lakes and the rivers that feed into them.

"Road salts represent the largest source of chloride inputs into Ontario waters," states the letter.

"Ontario makes up less than 11 per cent of Canada's landmass, but it is the biggest user of road salts in the nation. Your Ministry's scientific data shows conclusively that salt has been and continues to be a threat to aquatic ecosystems which is increasing in magnitude over time. 

"For example, data from the open-source Ontario Data Catalogue [shows] chloride levels in rivers and streams in urban areas often exceeds Canadian Water Quality Guideline of 120 milligrams per litre... and are increasing," it adds. "Drinking water intakes, even in large lakes like Lake Ontario, have reached 30 mg/l chloride and are increasing."

The group, which includes Water Watchers, Environmental Defence and the Ontario Rivers Alliance, wants the province to put together a broad-based working group to draft policy on the issue.

"Salty runoff into freshwater systems degrades water quality, endangers drinking water sources, jeopardizes aquatic life, and damages ecosystems," states the letter.

"Elevated chloride levels can be toxic to fish, insects, and amphibians, disrupting the delicate balance of our waterways. Furthermore, salt corrodes infrastructure from bridges to plumbing systems, incurring costly repairs."

Elevated salt levels in local creeks

Increased salt content is also a risk to drinking water, says Robert Edmondson, chair of the Halton-Hamilton Source Protection Committee, which is tasked with forming plans to protect the region's drinking water sources.

He said salt content has continued to increase in recent years in both waterways and wells.

"It's a function of how much salt has been going on the roads," he said, noting he is aware of the liability issues contractors face. 

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He said the smaller creeks near Burlington's border with Hamilton, such as Spencer Creek and Grindstone Creek, as well as Tuck Creek in Burlington, are all dealing with elevated salt levels.

"It can impact people who have intolerance to salt," he said, noting many people are medically required to undertake low-salt diets, but it's hard to avoid if it's in the water. "Of course, it also affects the taste of the water you're drinking."

Province says it's 'committed' to protecting waterways

Gary Wheeler, spokesperson for Ontario's Ministry of the Environment, said in an email the province is "committed" to "encouraging the sensible use and storage of snow and de-icing products" and protecting waterways.

Wheeler said Ontario has invested $1.4M since 2018 to address chloride monitoring and excess road salt.

He said the ministry works to promote operator certification and road salt alternatives. Wheeler also pointed to provincial guidance which recommends:

• Only using as much salt as you need to do the job.
• Use equipment that controls how fast the salt is distributed, so it doesn't just match the vehicle's speed.
• Only salt main thoroughfares and critical sections of other roadways, such as inclines, intersections, crosswalks.

Guelph advocate calls on Ontario to curb road salt pollution for World Water Day | CBC News

For World Water Day, the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition is sounding the alarm on the damage done by road salt and is calling on the province to do more to mitigate the risk of contamination to groundwater, rivers and lakes as well as to drinking water. 

The group sent a letter Thursday to Andrea Khanjin, the Ontario minister of the environment, conservation and parks, asking for the province to take "urgent action" to curb the effects of road salt pollution. 

They want the province "to create ecologically protective water quality standards, regulation, and enforcement for chloride pollution in Ontario water bodies under its obligations through the Canada-Ontario Great Lakes Agreement," the letter read.  

World Water Day is on March 22 and is an international event started by the United Nations to draw attention to the importance of drinking water conservation. 

The collective Canada-Ontario Great Lakes Agreement was established in 2021 to "protect and restore the Great Lakes" and has a clause about mitigating the risks from "harmful pollutants." 

"At the end of the day, the province needs to be the leader, needs to put out policy that's protective, needs to fund this work because it's going to take some work to get there," said Dani Lindamood, a co-ordinator with the coalition who co-signed the letter. She is also the program's director with the Guelph-based group Wellington Water Watchers.

"So the province, we really say, is the key here."  

Lindamood said salt can accumulate in soil and water and will eventually make its way to the great lakes — this not only affects drinking water, but biodiversity too. 

The Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition sent a letter to the province on the eve of World Water Day, asking them to do more about road salt pollution. (James Chaarani/CBC)

More road salt used

Lindamood said the sodium chloride contamination of waters comes exclusively from road salt and "the problem has just gotten worse over time." 

She explained  the influx of use is, in part, due to liability, where excessive salt is applied to roads and sidewalks for fear of being sued.

This is something that could be curbed by what she calls a "limited liability approach" where a person can have some legal protection so long as they adhere to a certain standard.  

"It's not a perfect model but it is better than what we have because right now we have no standards." 

Another issue she pointed to: As more land is developed, there are subsequently more sidewalks, parking lots and roads to salt, making matters worse.  

"Reducing salt application on roads, parking lots and sidewalks is something that requires support from all community members, including the winter maintenance industry, property owners, area municipalities and residents," said Mari MacNeil, the water and wastewater services director with the Region of Waterloo, in an email statement. 

"So our efforts to protect our wells from salt will continue as part of our long term strategy work to provide safe, clean drinking water to the community."

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Salt alternatives

Lindamood said plowing roads more often would be a viable alternative to salting. She believes that making snow tires mandatory in the winter could help too. 

"In Ontario, the standard that we try to operate to is to remove the evidence of winter completely from our roads," she said. "And I think it's really symbolic of the ways that we're disconnected from the season itself."    

She explained sand might be a good option in some cases but she'd also like the province to look into other chemical alternatives to salt to "evaluate the information that's out there on the different alternatives" and "do research if it's needed."  

Gary Wheeler, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, said in an emailed statement that they've received and are reviewing the letter by the coalition and the ministry is "committed to encouraging the sensible use and storage of snow and de-icing products." 

"This includes our ongoing funding support and collaboration on important programs that address environmental issues associated with the use of road salt on roads, walkways and parking lots during the winter," Wheeler said.

He pointed to the province's guidelines on snow disposal and de-icing operations, where they offer suggestions on how to use road salts.

Wheeler added that as of 2018, they have "invested over $1.4 million in 11 projects that address chloride monitoring and excess road salt." 

"The ministry is continually working to monitor chloride discharges in the environment and support the implementation of policies and practices that minimize impacts on our lakes and rivers and ensure roads and walkways can be safely used during the winter," Wheeler said.