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COLUMN: It's time for Ontario to mandate winter tires - Barrie News

It’s Dec. 24 and the world is a classic Christmas winter wonderland. Our resident cardinal flashes by on his breakfast feeder visit.

Sadly, Ontario’s highways present a hazardous, less bucolic scene. It often seems Ontario’s drivers must learn to handle winter from scratch — every year.

Six decades ago, I learned to drive in Montreal and on country roads around the city. Salt was not used then. Snow-covered city streets gradually darkened to beige with dirt; rural highways remained white for days.

Then, Montreal winters featured temperatures between -10 and -30 degrees Celsius; the countryside often dipped to a bone-chilling -40 C. At that time, cars had an engine in front driving the rear wheels. Most drivers, my father included, made do with just a pair of snow tires on the rear wheels.

I was more cautious and put four snow tires on my small car, paying extra to have them drilled for metal studs — 180 studs per wheel. With extraordinary control on slippery roads, I enjoyed watching cars in my mirror following me around curves drive into a ditch. That wasn’t nice, but I was young.

One day, freezing rain glazed my dad’s long, steep driveway with ice. I took him by the hand and we slid, out of control, down to the street. Unable to walk back up, we took the (icy) stairs back into the house. I then sat him in my car, accelerated down the driveway, braked before we hit the street, and then reversed back up to the garage.

“Now, Dad, will you buy studded snow tires?”

“No.”

Nevertheless, I believe he never crashed.

At the time, Montreal had a fleet of huge Sicard snow blowers on special trucks. Plows scraped snow to the side of the street. The Sicard followed, hurling the snow onto people’s lawns.

In 1965, Montreal began to experiment with road salt. Initially, it only salted intersections, but soon expanded to whole streets. People complained that the salt-laden snow poisoned their flower beds, hedges, and lawns.

The city was forced to use its Sicard machines to fill trucks with this snow, and dumped this into the St. Lawrence River. At the time, salting the river didn’t matter; no downstream municipality used river water. (Montreal only began treating its sewage in 1984.)

Another solution to the salt problem would have been to abandon its use, leaving hard-packed snow on the streets. With the low winter temperatures Montreal experienced then, hard-packed snow offered good grip. Also, very cold ice is far less slippery than you might expect.

In 1968, I left Canada to work as a Cuso volunteer in Nairobi, Kenya. After four years in Africa, I accepted a tenured academic post in Britain, and didn’t return to Canada until 1988. The icy, cold winters I knew had gone. Today, Montreal rarely experiences temperatures below -10 C and winter thaws are frequent. Where I used to carve a cave out of the snow berm at the bottom of our yard, Montreal’s snow no longer lasts through winter.

Returning to here and now, Ontario pours millions of tonnes of salt on our roads every winter. Required by law, this is set out in Ontario Regulation 239/02, Part 5.

As a result, Ontario’s roads are almost always wet. Heavy trucks and truck-like light vehicles create dangerous spray in their wake throughout winter, greatly reducing visibility for following vehicles.

More than 40 years ago, European regulations required heavy trucks and buses to install special mud flaps, which reduced the amount of spray by 80 to 90 per cent. It’s a pity similar regulations were never developed in North America.

Meanwhile, tire manufacturers developed special rubber compounds designed to grip snow and ice far more securely than can the rubber in “all-season” tires.

Many of us who experienced studded tires appreciated them for an important characteristic. They had similar grip on all road conditions: packed snow, wet roads, ice, slush, and dry pavement.

Today’s winter tires, made of softer, porous, hydrophilic (“water-loving”) rubber and designed with their distinctive multi-siped (many small grooves) tread design, are almost as effective on ice as studded tires, and easily equal or better than them on snow. Even if studded tires were allowed in Ontario, I am not sure I would choose them over a modern winter tire.

But, back to road salting. This inflicts considerable environmental damage to surface water. The salt content of our own Lake Simcoe has been increasing steadily for half a century, beginning when we started to use salt in a futile attempt to banish winter. Attempts to reduce the application rate (the Smart About Salt program) have had no influence on this upward trend. (See graph below.) Reduction in application rates was simply overwhelmed by urban sprawl, creating evermore roads calling for salt application.

Long before our water becomes too salty to drink (the limit is 230 milligrams per litre chloride; the East Holland River is already there; Hewitt’s and Lover’s creeks are halfway), we will have dramatically changed the spectrum of life in our lakes and streams. Many crustacea, larvae and insects are very sensitive to salt, so they will die off. These are food for our fish and other fauna. If our fish are unhappy with their newly salty habitat, what will replace them? What will our sport anglers think?

We pay a heavy price for our addiction to road salt. Corrosion triggered by road salt forced the replacement of Montreal’s Champlain Bridge just half a century after it first opened — costing more than $4.2 billion. Elliot Lake’s Algo Centre Mall roof collapsed in 2012, killing two people and injuring 20. This was attributed to corrosion due to road salt from cars parked on the mall’s roof. 

Bridges across our 400-series highways have been repaired due to “concrete cancer” (salt-accelerated corrosion of reinforced concrete). Cities across Ontario have had to replace street furniture (light standards, power poles, bus shelters, etc.) damaged by road salt. Road salt damages leather shoes and dog paws.

If that isn’t enough to convince us, consider safety. Road salting’s goal is clearing all snow to bare black pavement. While that’s laudable, consider the issues in achieving that goal.

One modern means of applying salt to the road surface is to spray a thin coating of brine solution before a snowfall. The purpose of this is to prevent a new snowfall from adhering to the road. That, in turn, allows a snow plow to remove most of the snow in one pass.

Unfortunately, if you drive on this road before the plow has arrived, your winter tires will grip the snow, but snow pads under your wheels will slide on the road because the snow cannot stick to it. I doubt anyone could compile statistics on how many crashes have been caused by this condition, but I have often experienced it — and have quietly cursed the practice.

In summer, the City of Barrie installs speed bumps on many streets, attempting to slow cars near schools and in quiet residential areas. These are removed before winter; otherwise, the municipal plow would remove them violently.

I would suggest a good way to slow cars is to keep the road “white,” leaving it covered with packed snow. Vehicles with proper winter tires will have excellent grip. Coupled with reduced speed, this should improve safety.

I began writing in a snowstorm and finished a week later in another. The city has not plowed my short street in three days. My small world is picture-postcard clean and white. My top-of-the-line winter tires protect me 24/7; winter road maintenance often doesn’t.

It’s high time for Ontario to require all passenger vehicles to have winter tires, just as Quebec has done for years. Quebec passed such a law in 2008. Drivers must install winter tires between Dec. 1 and March 15. Since then, the number of road deaths on Quebec’s roads has halved.

So, why don’t we do this? If we do, we can also reduce the number of roads to be salted.

And, it is time we require school buses to have winter tires. After all, they carry our most precious cargo.

Winter road salt could be killing salmon eggs

Researchers have found that high levels of salt kill fertilized coho salmon eggs, raising concerns about the use of road salt in winter.

The Road Salt and Pacific Salmon Success Project, a collaboration between UBC, SFU, BCIT, the department of fisheries and oceans, and community scientists, monitors salt levels in more than 30 streams in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland (VLM). In this Q&A, zoology masters students Carley Winter (CW) and Clare Kilgour (CK) discuss the project’s preliminary results.

Why are you investigating road salt and salmon?

CW: We launched this project three winters ago to understand the impact of road salt run-off on salmon in freshwater streams throughout the Vancouver Lower Mainland. We know that Pacific salmon are in decline and we don’t know all the factors involved. Adult salmon live in salt water but grow up in fresh, and their bodies change drastically to allow this to happen. There’s evidence that when salmon are developing at very young ages, death and deformities can occur if exposed to high concentrations of road salt.

CK: Federal and provincial guidelines set maximum salt, or chloride, levels in streams, but these levels have not been widely and routinely monitored in VLM streams. We used a network of almost 40 water quality devices across the VLM to identify any patterns in road salt contamination, and specifically, whether there were spikes in conductivity occurring every winter when road salt is being applied. Then, we tested in the lab whether these levels and patterns affected salmon at the ages when they would live in these same streams and rivers; that is, salmon eggs and fry.

What did you find?

CK: Our results are preliminary and so, yet to be peer-reviewed. We measured conductivity in streams, a proxy for salt levels, and found there were indeed peaks in the winter. The largest ‘pulses’ of salt were 10 times B.C.’s acute water quality guideline for chloride in freshwater systems, equivalent to almost 30 per cent of sea water. When these pulses occur, they exceed this acute guideline just over 30 per cent of the time. On average, these excessive salt levels lasted for about a day.

CW: We mimicked these recorded salt pulses in the lab, exposing coho salmon eggs to one salt pulse either shortly after fertilization or once they hatched. We found applying a 24-hour salt pulse to embryos shortly after fertilization significantly decreased survival, starting at two times the recommended chloride levels. When salt concentrations increased to eight times the guideline level, more than 70 per cent of eggs died. If embryos survived a salt pulse of three times the recommended level, we found about four per cent of them were deformed and would not survive in nature.

Our data suggests that salting roads at current levels in November or December, when many salmon species are spawning and embryos are developing in streams, could be dangerous to coho and chum salmon.

Coho salmon eggs exposed to salt pulses. Credit: Clare Kilgour

What can we do?

CK: It’s important to keep people safe from slipping and falling during winter. Rather, we should use only the amount of salt needed to melt ice: you only need about two tablespoons per square metre. When you’re salting your driveway, spread salt out rather than placing it in clumps. This achieves the same effect but uses much less salt.

CW: Municipalities could switch to brine for melting ice on roads as it not only uses up to 50 per cent less salt, but it is more effective at sticking to streets and sidewalks. It’s a win-win: Using less road salt saves salmon and taxpayers’ money.

What are your next steps?

CK: We plan to investigate how excessive levels of salt affect salmon eggs and fry in non-lethal ways, for instance, growth and genetic effects. Our partners at SFU will look at how road salt affects coho hatching in the field next winter. 

Alternatives to salt for safe winter walkways

In winter, we deal not only with below-zero temperatures but also with the ice that accumulates on paving stones, increasing the risk of slipping and injury. Homeowners are responsible for ensuring pedestrians' safety. So, how can we manage ice effectively?

Traditionally, salt was used to combat ice on paving stones. However, it turns out that this commonly used solution may not be the best. Now, more and more homeowners are moving away from this method.

The reason is the negative impact of using salt—it not only damages paving stones and stains shoes, causing white streaks, but it is also harmful to plants and animals that may come into contact with it. Therefore, there is a need to explore alternative methods. We have a few proven suggestions worth trying this season.

Spread on paving stones instead of salt

An optimal substitute for salt could be diatomaceous earth, also known as diatomite. You can easily purchase it online. It is safe for both animals and plants. It eliminates ice and absorbs the resulting moisture.

Another recommended substance for spreading on paving stones is magnesium chloride or calcium chloride. Like diatomaceous earth, they are not harmful to animals or plants. They work effectively in low temperatures—melting ice even in severe cold.

Is sand a good idea?

Homeowners often use sand as an added measure. While sand can help maintain stability on icy surfaces, it does not contribute to melting ice, so it should be used only as a temporary solution.

U of G researching smart salt trucks, managing waterborne diseases - Guelph News

Improving winter road safety and reshaping how we control waterborne diseases are the themes of two University of Guelph research projects that have received funding through the Ontario Research Fund.

As part of more than $92 million invested by the provincial government, two University of Guelph research projects have received funding. 

The Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) program provides funding to research institutions such as universities, colleges, research institutes and research hospitals across the province.  

At U of G, improving winter road safety and reshaping the control of waterborne diseases are the two projects being supported. 

“This investment will support our researchers as they create cutting-edge, sustainable solutions to enhance the capabilities of Ontario’s infrastructure and public health sectors,” said Shayan Sharif, interim vice-president, research and innovation.

 “We thank the Government of Ontario for helping us transform these discoveries into solutions that promote health and safety in our communities.”  

Bahram Gharabaghi, professor in the School of Engineering, College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, will develop the next generation of ‘smart’ salt trucks designed to improve road safety, reduce traffic accidents and mitigate environmental concerns associated with road salt during the winter.

According to a recent U of G release, currently, salt trucks in Ontario are operated manually. Drivers use hands-on controls to dispense salt and brine and adjust the rate and amount being applied while operating plow blades and watching the road at the same time. 

The planning process for salt application is also manual. 

Gharabaghi said a lack of automation and consistency can lead to challenges. Roads remain slippery without enough salt and overapplication wastes resources. Also, overapplication near vulnerable areas, such as freshwater sources, may be contaminated by road salt, resulting in runoff that can harm ecosystems.  

The tools being developed by Gharabaghi and his team, including Amir Aliabadi and Ed McBean, professors in the school of engineering, will equip trucks with real-time, mobile road, weather and surface monitoring technology for precision salt application. 

Built-in, remotely operated control systems will apply salt and brine at optimum rates and combinations that are automatically calculated using road condition sensors, a vehicle’s GPS location and weather forecasts for that area. 

Together, these technologies will help to make driving safer, save resource costs and protect ecological areas. 

David McCarthy, professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, Ontario Agricultural College and Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Waterborne Pathogens: Surveillance, Prediction and Mitigation, will develop innovative technologies that will enable earlier detection and better control of waterborne diseases.  

In the recent university release, McCarthy said current disease surveillance methods for water systems are limited. Poor sampling methods, expensive and time-consuming analytical methods, and incorrect identification of disease sources can reduce the efficiency of management strategies aiming to control pathogens in our waters. 

Without fully understanding where they come from, how they travel and where they end up, this can lead to costly mistakes and persistent health risks. Traditional water treatment methods are also expensive and often harmful to the environment. 

McCarthy and his team will develop accessible, integrated solutions for the surveillance, prediction and treatment of waterborne pathogens. 

These include technologies that can detect pathogens and their sources in near real-time, which is critical for disease risk reduction, modelling tools for pathogen tracking and risk assessment so that health organizations can respond to threats more accurately. 

The project will also allow for sustainable, cost-effective water infrastructure treatment systems to better control infectious agents in agriculture, recreation and drinking water scenarios.  

The Ontario Research Fund – Research Infrastructure (ORF-RI) program’s Small Infrastructure Fund co-funds with the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) John R. Evans Leaders Fund (JELF). Other U of G researchers also receiving these matching funds were awarded JELF funding in August 2023 and September 2024. 

The ORF-RI program provides research institutions with funding to help support infrastructure needs, including modern facilities and equipment.  

Does NYC have enough salt for the winter? Snow doubt. - Gothamist

New York City’s sanitation department is sitting on a veritable mountain of road salt thanks to a run of relatively snow-free winters.

City officials on Wednesday said that’s a sign the city is prepared for even the nastiest of blizzards this year.

Sanitation officials gave reporters a tour of the department’s massive garage on Spring Street in Manhattan, where they showed off an arsenal of snow-fighting equipment, including plows and salt spreaders. Across the street, a heap of salt sat inside a city-owned shed, part of the city’s roughly 350,000-ton stockpile of road salt. But as winters in the city continue to grow more mild, all that equipment and material is being used less and less.

New York City recorded a combined 15 inches of snow over the last two winters, according to data from the Office of Management and Budget. The two prior winters combined for roughly 62 inches of snow, data shows.

The decline in snowfall — which experts said is connected to climate change — has nonetheless saved taxpayers money. The city reduced its budget for snow removal by $25 million this fiscal year, but officials noted they could flex more money into salting and plowing during an emergency.

Still, sanitation employees said they’re not asleep behind the plow wheel.

“ Many people think it doesn't snow in New York City anymore,” said acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan, who started his career collecting trash and plowing snow in the 1990s. “Those people are wrong. Last year, 13 inches of snow fell across the five boroughs. And while winter is unpredictable, we have to be ready.”

Sanitation officials said they’ve also ordered new snow fighting equipment, including more miniature snowplows that can also spread salt as they clear bike lanes and pedestrian spaces.

The agency has also added large trucks that spread brine to prevent snow from building up to its snow fighting fleet.

“ The addition of brine and liquid salt that adheres to the roadway is one of the key snow fight innovations of the last few years,” Lojan said.

Salt harming watersheds - Ontario OUT of DOORS

Much effort is put into keeping our roads, sidewalks, and parking lots safe when winter storms bring snow and ice. We obviously need to limit vehicle collisions and slips and falls. The downside is that road salt entering our rivers and lakes ultimately harms flora and fauna.

Sodium chloride (NaCl) is the predominant de-icer, making up 97% of total usage due to its cost, abundance, and effectiveness. Calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, and potassium chloride make up the remaining salts. Road salt acts by lowering the freezing point of water, creating ice melt below water’s normal freezing point of 0˚C. Sodium chloride salt is not effective below -100˚C.

Road salt is soluble and dissolves in run-off water adjacent to roads, parking lots, and sidewalks. This water with elevated levels of chloride enters storm drains, ditches, and culverts, and flows onto the earth as soil water or penetrates deeper as groundwater. Water also flows overland into streams, ponds, and lakes. Based on the yearly addition of chloride, these salinity levels increase annually.

Assessing the damage

A 2020 University of Toronto Study by Jackson and Lawson measured chloride concentration at more than 200 sites on the Humber and Don rivers and Mimico and Etobicoke creeks. Almost 90% of the samples exceeded federal guidelines for long-term chronic exposure for aquatic life.

These samples taken during the summer indicate the slow transfer of groundwater carrying winter soluble chlorides. The study shows road salt is a year-round threat to watersheds. The results also show that one-third of the sites had levels that would be lethal to two-thirds of aquatic species.

An international research study co-led by Dr. Shelley Arnott of Queens University in Kingston examined human-induced salt pollution in lakes.

Study sites throughout Europe and North America, including the Lake Ontario watershed, showed that widespread salinity had created loss of zooplankton, which in turn led to unwanted increases in algae formation and subsequent lake oxygen depletion. Major damage is being done to freshwater lakes by salt concentrations at salt levels much below that of guideline levels established by government agencies, the study concluded.

The Lake Simcoe Region Concentration Authority (LSRCA) has also been monitoring chloride levels for years. The actual chloride level of Lake Simcoe has been increasing steadily at a rate of .7 milligrams per litre annually.

LSCRA researchers found that in nearby streams and rivers, particularly in urban areas, salinity levels regularly exceeded short- and long-term guidelines established by the Canadian government.

Monitoring of road salts

In 1995, the federal government recognized the harms being done by road salt and initiated an assessment report culminating in the 2004 Code of Practice for Environmental Management of Road Salts. A second review of the code was completed in 2022.

The assessment confirmed increased chloride levels were responsible for harmful adverse effects on aquatic species, terrestrial vegetation, wildlife mortality, and soil chemistry. Recommendations included management of storage facilities, roadway application, and snow disposal, with a focus on maximizing human safety while minimizing potential harm to the environment.

All road authorities in Ontario are encouraged to implement salt management plans and identify actions they will take to improve practices related to storage and application. Whereas road authorities both provincial and municipal need to follow regulations regarding maintenance procedures this is not the case for independent contractors working on private and commercial properties.

An area of concern for contractors is the possibility of litigation if there ever is an accident. Overuse of salt is the normal reaction. Excess use of road salt on private property is estimated to make up more than 50% of total salinity concentration in watersheds of the Great Lakes.

Zooplankton impact key

Of particular concern is that research shows road salt has a toxic effect on zooplankton, key members of the food web. Not only is zooplankton food for fish, it keeps algae levels somewhat under control. An increase in algae levels creates a corresponding reduction in oxygen levels of lakes. A decrease in zooplankton levels reduces growth rates of various fish species and will inhibit optimal reproductive success.

There is no disputing the evidence that the status quo of road salt application is not acceptable.

Each year our freshwater rivers and lakes are being progressively contaminated. If we as stakeholders ignore the immediacy of the problem, it could be too late to save our freshwater ecosystems.

What can be done

There’s no simple solution. For the time being, there is a salt dependency based on the need for safety. Actions we can take include:

• Continued research and scientific studies to identify areas of salt contamination in Great Lakes watersheds
• Experimental use of alternative de-icers. Some municipalities in Ontario have used beet juice and other products, with mixed results. Use of a sand/rock salt mix has not been encouraging. More experimentation is in progress
• Support for organizations such as the Smart About Salt Council which offers training and certification for private contractors
• Pre-wetting roadways with brine can help salt stick and not create excess waste on shoulders
• Commercial property guidelines which substantially reduce the rate of salt application
• Use embedded roadway sensors to provide information on air and pavement temperatures to help decide when salting is needed
• Calibrate spreader controls on salting equipment and keep accurate records of dispersal
• Property owners should apply salt on sidewalks and driveways at a minimal rate and consider using a mix with sand.

Other reasons why salt sucks:

• Infrastructure including steel foundations of buildings and bridges suffer corrosion and rust. The Gardiner Expressway in Toronto is an example.
• Not great for vehicles.
• Plants and animals in freshwater can tolerate fluctuations in salinity but reproduction, growth rates, reduced food sources, and habitat impairment can be issues.
• Salt concentration in soil can cause flushing, reducing nutrients needed by vegetation.
• Invasive saltwater species have an easier entry into Ontario’s waterways and adapt faster.
• In areas with groundwater-fed drinking wells, increased chloride could be dangerous for individuals on a sodium-reduced diet.

Approximately five million tonnes of road salt are applied in Canada each year, according to the federal government.

Marion using a salt and molasses mixture to keep roads clear this winter | The Gazette

MARION — The city of Marion is using a new salt mixture to melt ice off roads and sidewalks this winter. The secret ingredient? Molasses.

The same molasses used in cooking and baking is now mixed in with some of the city’s salt supply and distributed throughout town.

The new blend — called “Magic-0” from Skyline Salt Solutions — includes molasses and some added calcium chloride to make the salt stick to the road surface and activate at colder temperatures.

Mike Barkalow, Marion’s public services and utilities director, said this salt mixture will be more environmentally friendly.

“By using the salt with the molasses in it, it will help the salt stick to the pavement, so there’s less salt being used, rather than it going straight into the streams,” Barkalow said.

In recent decades, road salt has been blamed for higher salt concentrations and increased alkaline levels in rivers and streams.

According to a 2018 study by the U.S. Geological Survey, of the 232 U.S. streams and rivers monitored across the country, 34 percent showed increased sodium levels and 66 percent had increased alkaline.

Barkalow said because the molasses helps the salt stick to the road surface, the city anticipates it will be able to use less salt, which also could benefit rivers and streams.

The salt mixture comes pretreated. Typical dry salt has to make contact with water to activate, Barkalow said. But for the molasses salt, the city creates a brine by adding water, which makes the salt scatter less once it is deployed on the roads.

A typical dry road salt becomes ineffective when the temperature drops below 15 degrees Fahrenheit.

“If our road temperature is really cold, it doesn’t matter how much salt we throw at it, it’s not going to melt,” Barkalow said.

But with the sodium chloride added in, the salt will be effective in much colder temperatures, like minus 15-degree weather, Barkalow said.

Marion isn’t the only city taking advantage of this new molasses mixture.

Michael Duffy, assistant public works director for the City of Cedar Rapids, said the city has been testing the same mixture.

“Cedar Rapids has used a number of different materials based on the type of event, taking into consideration the duration, pavement temperature, air temperature and location of application,” Duffy said in an email to The Gazette on Monday. We utilize this treated salt during extreme cold when the salt is less effective.”

‘Another tool in the toolbox’

Despite the salt being more effective in colder temperatures and sticking to the ground better, Barkalow said the molasses mixture won’t be used every time Marion has a winter weather event.

Barkalow said the best option after snowfall is to remove the snow with snowblowers and plows, so the city will continue to use those methods. But when ice remains on the road surface after snow has been removed, Marion will use the salt mixture.

“We are looking at this just as another tool in our toolbox,” Barkalow said. “We are still learning, too.”

Marion first deployed the new salt mixture after the snowfall earlier this month. For this past weekend’s ice storm that hit much of Eastern Iowa late Friday night and into Saturday, Barkalow said the city put salt on roads prior to the storm to “pretreat” them.

Matt Morris, the operational and street maintenance manager for Marion’s Public Works Department, said the city used about 50 tons of treated salt to de-ice from Saturday’s ice storm.

He said they used the molasses mixture on primary and secondary roads, but used regular salt on residential streets.

In Cedar Rapids, Duffy said the city pretreated the roads with the salt mixture before the ice came because it is “easier to fight the ice buildup.”

The “salt is not applied to melt the ice formed, rather to break the bond between pavement and ice so it can be removed,” Duffy said.

This isn’t the first time Linn County cities have experimented with salt mixtures to de-ice roads better.

The City of Cedar Rapids uses beet juice to help salt stay in place on the roads. It’s estimated the beet juice reduces the salt’s “scattering” effect by 30 percent and could save Cedar Rapids about $25,000 per year in materials.

“The beet juice does not have any specific melting properties but does help the material stay in place longer and at colder temperatures,” Duffy said.

Barkalow said Skyline Salt brought its mixing system to Marion’s public works facility and treated 1,000 tons of salt with the molasses and calcium chloride mix. The measurements of calcium chloride and molasses in the salt is proprietary, and must be done by the company.

The city also still keeps untreated salt on hand for use on city streets.

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; olivia.cohen@thegazette.com

Surrey snow-clearing crews are ready with a 17,000-tonne mountain of salt - Surrey Now-Leader

An online Plow Tracker and live-streaming traffic cameras are among tools and equipment used in Surrey to help residents prepare for winter driving. 

When snow falls, residents can check surrey.ca/snow to see which roads have been plowed and also track the city's 77-unit fleet of snow-clearing, de-icing trucks, backhoes and tractors.

City crews appear ready for winter at Surrey Works Yard, off 148 Street, where a floor-to-ceiling mountain of road salt (17,000 tonnes of it) is stored in a shed, along with road-brining solution.

All that salt might be needed if meteorologists are correct with forecasts of a colder, wetter winter in Metro Vancouver.

"You could boil a lot of pasta water with that pile of salt," joked Yonatan Yohannes, Surrey's director of engineering operations, a job he'll have for a second winter.

Ensuring 4,200 kilometres of Surrey roads are safe and passable this winter "is a top priority for the City of Surrey,” Mayor Brenda Locke said during a Dec. 5 news conference.

"We all have a role to play in helping keep our community safe this winter," Locke added. "Please do your part to clear snow and ice from sidewalks outside your home and prepare your vehicle for winter driving.”  

The city works yard is also home to Surrey's traffic camera network and road/weather information system, used for snow-removal efforts.

Surrey uses a three-level route priority system, first focused on arterial roads, major collector roads, bus routes and hilly areas.

Some of Surrey's major routes, including highways 10, 15 and 17, are of provincial snow-clearing concern for crews of Mainroad Contracting, Yohannes noted.

"We are in constant communications with those contractors to make sure all roads are taken care of, because at the end of the day it's our residents who drive those areas, those streets," he said.

Details about Surrey's Winter Snow & Ice Control Operations are posted on surrey.ca/snow. Residents can report a snow or ice problem by calling 604-591-4152, or call 604-591-4370 to report un-shovelled properties in Surrey.

Those who don't clear snow off sidewalks may be fined under City of Surrey’s Highway and Traffic Bylaw at rates of $80 per day (businesses) and $55 per day (residential).

Speaking of money, the Surrey engineering department’s 2024 winter maintenance budget is $4.61 million, $2.74 of which has been spent since January, according to a Snow and Ice Operations report to city council in November. "If seasonal temperatures remain favourable for the balance of the winter season, the Engineering Department will likely be within the allocated budget for 2024," the report notes.

Road salt use during Chicago winters has dropped with climate change, but city remains mindful of usage - CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The City of Chicago goes to great lengths to keep its roads safe and clear during the winter—but how it is done has changed with the changing weather.

Records show that the city's salt usage has dropped over the years. Last year, the city used less salt than at any point in the last 10 years.

Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation crews prepare for winter 11 months of the year.

"In Chicago weather, you never know what's going to happen," said Department of Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Cole Stallard.

Stallard has seen more than 20 Chicago winters on the job. That means a firsthand look at how the winters have changed.

"We're here," Stallard said. "We're seeing change happening. We're seeing weather changing."

With a changing climate, experts say extreme weather changes are to be expected moving forward.

The amount of salt the city has used over the years tells the same changing story. In the winter of 2020-2021, the city used a total of 322,000 tons of salt, while during winter 2023-2024, only 119,500 tons were used.

Meanwhile, while salt use has dropped, being mindful about usage is still top-of-mind in Chicago and across Illinois. Too much road salt in waterways can contaminate drinking water, kill or endanger wildlife, increase soil erosion, and damage property, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning echoes the call for less salt—or being smarter about use, while the Salt Smart Collaborative offers tips and resources for everyone on how to salt responsibly.

"We are mindful of that," said Stallard. "We'll on what we call the air—the radio—and say, 'Make sure you adjust your spread.'"

CBS News Chicago also got a close look at one of the alternatives being used on our roads right now-beet juice.

"We actually make it ourselves," said Stallard.

Beet juice is not a replacement for salt—it is primarily used only at the beginning and end of winter. But Stallard said it is making a difference.

"You don't want to step in it," said Stallard. "You don't want to bring it into your car, because it doesn't smell the greatest." 

The trucks that spread beet juice focus on bridges, overpasses, and DuSable Lake Shore Drive.

Chicago has more than 400,000 tons of salt on hand right now.

Some 'eco-friendly' de-icers are as harmful as road salt, so what else is there? - The Weather Network

The concept of less damaging, “eco-friendly” de-icers is welcomed as a step in the right direction, but new data has shown that at least some of them actually tend to be worse than the road salt they were intended to replace.

A group of biologists from Queen’s University examined the effects of salt levels in freshwater habitats from de-icer runoffs, comparing them to some of the more eco-friendly labelled solutions such as beet juice, according to a news release. Only minimal effects on the communities were uncovered, including bacterial and zooplankton at high road salt concentrations, but researchers discovered more significant alterations with the more modern concoctions.

DON'T MISS: Is road salt hurting salmon? UBC and volunteers are investigating

More details on the impacts are included in a recent study published in the journal, Water.

The main reason the alternative de-icers such as sugar beet juice aren't as advertised is because of the sodium chloride they contain, according to Shelley Arnott, a professor and researcher at Queen's University.

"These de-icers are really just road salt with some additives. I think the problem is that some of those additives can actually be more harmful than the salt," said Arnott, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.

Two de-icers examined by researchers

The Queen's University researchers tested two types of alternative de-icers, both of which contain sodium chloride as the major component. However, one of them also has a beet juice additive and the other contains magnesium and calcium chloride, as well.

"What we found was that the product with the beet juice additive was actually way more toxic to zooplankton. Zooplankton are kind of an intermediate level of the food web, so they're really important in transferring energy from the algae, [which] are the primary producers. So, it transfers that algae up to higher trophic levels, like fish," said Arnott.

She said zooplankton are thought of as "really critical" links in the ecosystems, so if something is affecting them negatively, then it's most likely impacting the entire food web chain.

Meanwhile, Arnott noted that the beet juice brine still caused a negative impact on the zooplankton with a much smaller amount of it when compared to the road salt with sodium chloride, and the alternative de-icer with the sodium, magnesium and calcium chloride.

"Being affected at lower concentrations (referring to chloride concentrations) means that it doesn’t take as much to cause mortality or reduce reproduction," said Arnott.

To conduct the tests, researchers isolated the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from the "little ponds that we made," allowing them to see all of the bacteria living in the water, according to Virginia Walker, Arnott's colleague and fellow Queen's University professor.

"What we found was that the bacteria that need oxygen to survive were gone, and those bacteria that cause bad smells and everything that don't need oxygen to survive, they're the ones that were left," said Walker, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.

Problems with beet juice as a de-icer

One reason why road salt alternatives with beet juice additives are used is they tend to stick to the road a "bit better" and you don't have to apply it as often, Arnott said.

The juice from sugar beets lowers the melting point of ice and snow, helping to clear your driveway. It’s also used to melt ice and snow on municipal roads in some areas.

"The idea is that you would reduce the amount of salt that you're putting into the environment," said Arnott.

The problem, however, lies in its toxicity, which is worse than road salt, Arnott added.

"Beets have a high amount of potassium, and potassium chloride is really toxic to aquatic organisms," said Arnott.

"There are all these sugars associated with the beet juice. Those sugars fuel bacteria, and then we see this huge drop in oxygen. Of course, oxygen is essential for aquatic organisms, and if you don't have enough oxygen, it's going to change the food web."

Walker noted that of the two de-icers, the variation with the magnesium and calcium chloride had less of an impact than the other in their studies.

"That would be one that might be explored, the magnesium chloride and calcium chloride. But that still doesn't get away from the fact that you're adding salts to the environment."

New Brunswick wetland may hold key to limiting effects of road salt runoff

So, if the idea of environmentally friendly de-icers is just a fairy tale, then what is the answer to dealing with the run-off of road salt every year? Well, New Brunswick may have stumbled upon the answer.

Earlier this year, results were released that showed a wetland connected to the City of Moncton's snow-disposal facility improved water quality. According to Ducks Unlimited Canada, chloride levels were reduced by 66 per cent to 93 per cent when comparing water samples from the inlet and outlet of the wetland.

"If we develop too close to these watercourses or [we] manipulate the system, then you start to get a decline in the ability for the the natural world to help clean these things up," said Adam Campbell, Ducks Unlimited Canada's manager of provincial operations for the Atlantic region, in a recent interview with The Weather Network.

A driving factor in the water quality improvement has been the dense vegetation in the channel leading to and within the pond, Campbell noted.

"It's quite shallow, which allows us to have a lot of emergent vegetation growing up through the surface of the water," said Campbell. "The more vegetation that comes into contact with the water, the more opportunity for absorption of nutrients. You can knock out sediment from suspension."

City of Moncton staff have been monitoring the water quality within the snowmelt collected by the wetland since 2014.

According to Ducks Unlimited Canada, run-off from municipal “snow dumps” can be particularly troublesome, and can contain gravel, salt and hydrocarbons from oil and gas, among other things.

The road salt in the snowmelt gets initially diluted by the water in the wetland, and then is absorbed by some of the plant species growing within it, acting as another source of pollutant removal, Campbell explained.

“The natural assets that wetlands provide are really impressive. The reality is we need to make sure that we maintain what we have because they're doing all of these services for us," said Campbell.

Even small doses of road salt affect aquatic species and landscapes

While the environmental effects of road salt have been widely documented, Arnott noted that aquatic organisms are affected even at levels "we thought [were] permissible."

"Any road salt is going to be bad. We know that it is toxic in aquatic environments. We have guidelines that allow for a little bit of it to go into the environment under the assumption that it's not going to have an impact on aquatic organisms," said Arnott.

The other concern with road salt is an increase in usage, another unintended consequence of climate change, Walker explained.

"As climate change occurs, we'll be pushing the window of where we can use salt farther and farther north. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't seen an eco-friendly de-icer that I would want to use, yet," said Walker.

As for the Moncton wetland project, Campbell said it should sustain itself for "quite a long time."

"We'll continue to monitor that and make sure that it's functioning the way it should," he said.

Meanwhile, Campbell wants to look for new opportunities and similar environmental projects to handle the snow, either in Moncton or adjacent to the city. Ducks Unlimited Canada has had a few municipalities reach out to it.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how that might lead to some more pond development on the landscape," said Campbell.

"We're just kind of scratching the surface here. There is likely some salt-tolerant vegetation along roadsides that can help out, and a combination of that and some wetlands might be a pretty cool path forward."