Canadian government unaware of the full ecological impact of road salt
Environment and climate change Canada says it does not know to what extent road salt, a completely Canadian pollutant, causes ecological damage in Canada.
Federal investigators estimate it poses a greater threat to the environment than fracking, though tons of it are used annually in Ontario and Québec, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Saline application for deicing purposes is recognized as a major source of contamination,” a department report said. “There is still room for improvement.”
In 1995, the Environment Department placed road salt on a ‘list of priority substances’. However, it did not list the ubiquitous mineral as toxic, although federal research conducted in 2001 concluded that salt posed a risk to “plants, animals, birds, fish, and the ecosystems of lakes and groundwater.”
Almost all of the 4.9 million tons used on Canada’s roads each year are used in Ontario. Referring to accurate usage data in the country, the department said it was “difficult to evaluate the amount” because neighboring Québec does not report usage data. The latest figures submitted by Québec in 2017 estimate salt consumption in the province at 1.5 million tons per year.
“Canada is the world’s largest consumer of salt, primarily due to the demand for de-icing salt for road deicing in winter conditions,” said the new report, “Assessment of Progress: Code of Practice for the Environmental Management of Road Salt.”
“About 90 to 95 percent of Canada’s salt consumption is for defrosting and chemical production.”
“There are no comprehensive studies on chloride concentrations across Canada,” the report said. “Many recent studies of long-term trends in chloride concentrations in certain North American freshwater ecosystems have shown increasing chloride concentrations.”
The Government of Canada published a research report in 2001 on the impact of road salt across the country. The report concluded that the amount of road salt used in Canada “increased the chloride levels of both ground and surface water and had adverse environmental effects”.
A review of the report concluded that “the assessment conducted in 2001 found that the amount of road salt used in Canada … was responsible for detrimental adverse effects on aquatic species, terrestrial vegetation, wildlife mortality and soil chemistry. Implementing best practices in road salt management is essential to protecting the environment from the negative impacts of road salt because appropriate road salt application techniques vary from region to region and there is no one-size-fits-all solution for road salt across Canada. .”
Canadian municipalities apparently use road salt excessively without regard to public safety or environmental harm considerations, researchers wrote.
“There is a social expectation of bare sidewalks and sidewalks during the winter,” researchers said. “Decisions about salt application, including how much salt to apply, are often dictated by perceptions of risk and liability and can lead to too much salt.”
In addition to road salt, several chemicals used every day, including fertilizers, are more dangerous to the environment than shale gas fracking, according to a 2013 Access to Information report obtained by the Department of Natural Resources.
“In Canada, surface activities have been identified as the greatest risks to groundwater, e.g. municipal landfills, industrial waste landfills, leaking gasoline storage tanks, leaking septic tanks, accidental spills, runoff of road salt, fertilizers, pesticides, livestock waste, et cetera,” the report said. from 2013.
“Hydraulic fracturing using the technologies used in Canada and governed by Canadian regulatory requirements has not resulted in significant negative environmental impacts,” said the report, “Shale Gas Development in Canada: An NRCan Perspective.”
The Government Report on Road Salt presents a five-year overview of progress made through the implementation of the “Code of Practice for the Environmental Management of Road Salt, 2014 to 2019” (pdf).
