GUEST COLUMN: Legal changes could help reduce damage from road salt - Barrie News

Property owners using extra salt 'not because they don't care about our environment. It's fear of being sued,' says NVCA chair.

The following is from Jonathan Scott, who is chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority (NVCA) and a town councillor in Bradford West Gwillimbury.

It’s been such a hot summer, it may seem odd to read a column about winter maintenance in August.

But, as the Stark motto goes, winter is coming.

Every winter in Ontario, our roads, parking lots and sidewalks are covered with road salt. It’s an ingrained habit. For decades, we’ve equated “safe” with “salted,” and our winter maintenance culture has leaned toward the idea that more salt is always better.

It means extending the life span of roads, sidewalks and vehicles. And it means less corrosion, fewer potholes, and lower costs for taxpayers.

Local municipalities aren’t ignoring the problem. Many have invested in new technology, alternative de-icing mixtures and more precise application methods. My municipality of Bradford West Gwillimbury uses a mix of sand and salt, innovative application guidelines and technology, and we’re investing more than $2.1 million to create a snow storage and filtration system, to help filter pollutants out of snow meltwater before it leeches into our riverway.

These measures help. But a larger driver of chloride increases in our watershed isn’t the salt spread by municipalities — it’s the salt used by private contractors and property owners on their parking lots. And it’s not because they don’t care about our environment. It’s fear of being sued.

In Ontario, if someone slips and falls, the contractor or property owner can be sued, even if they follow best practices for winter maintenance. Without clear legal protection, the safest business decision often seems to be “use more salt than you think you need, just to be sure.”

More salt means more perceived protection from lawsuits. But it also means more pollution, higher costs and unnecessary strain on infrastructure.

This is why the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority’s board of directors joined other municipalities and conservation authorities to call on the province to change the law for better environmental conservation by introducing a limited-liability framework.

That means we’re urging the government to create a legal protection system that reduces legal risks for certified snow and ice contractors who follow salt management best practices. We’re also asking for a provincial advisory committee — bringing together municipalities, the environmental sector, business and industry, and the insurance community — to design and promote those best practices.

This isn’t an untested idea.

In New Hampshire, where a similar program offers a defence for contractors who are certified and in compliance with state-endorsed practices, salt use has dropped by as much as 40 per cent in some areas, without any rise in accidents.

Most importantly, this isn’t about imposing new regulations. It’s the opposite: It’s about cutting red tape by giving contractors and property owners a clear, voluntary path to manage risk responsibly. If you follow the best practices, you get legal protection and peace of mind. If you choose not to, you may continue as you are today, but without the added protection.

It’s a win-win-win. This approach lines up perfectly with the Ontario government’s priorities of reducing red tape, supporting businesses and protecting the environment. And it’s a rare opportunity to get ahead of a growing problem with a simple legal reform.

As winter approaches, we at the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority will be working with our partners at the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition to take this message to Queen’s Park. We've already met some of our local MPPs to advocate on this issue. If we act now, we can protect our waterways, support responsible contractors and save money — all without compromising winter safety.

Ontario has a chance to lead. The alternative is to keep dumping salt into our environment at unsustainable levels, paying the price later in degraded water quality, damaged infrastructure and rising maintenance bills.

As chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, I’ve seen first-hand how local governments, conservation authorities, and businesses can come together to tackle shared challenges. But chloride pollution isn’t a problem any one municipality — or even one sector — can solve alone. We need a provincial framework that rewards doing the right thing.

Winter in Ontario is inevitable. Salt pollution doesn’t have to be.