Latest news with #roadSalt
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Save wildlife, contractors from winter salt woes: Councillor
Dianne Saxe has a request for Toronto: Go easy on the salt. This week, Saxe's colleagues on city council will consider a proposal from City Hall's infrastructure and environment committee that urges the province to legislate 'best management practices for snow and ice' and to limit liability in slip-and-fall lawsuits. The proposal also calls on City Hall 'to continue to minimize the use of road salt as much as possible while maintaining safety on roads, parking lots and sidewalks.' It comes mere months after councillors debated the sorry state of snow removal in Toronto. In February, Mayor Olivia Chow said the state of removal operations after a long weekend snowstorm had been 'just totally unacceptable.' Saxe's work was instrumental to the item on council's agenda. Saxe, now the councillor for University-Rosedale ward, had previously urged the province to take the salt pollution issue seriously as Ontario's environment commissioner. Saxe told the Toronto Sun this proposal isn't about the road salt that keeps people safe – it's about 'clear waste,' the 'heaps of salt' that hit Toronto's streets each winter. 'This isn't about people not being able to get around,' Saxe said. 'This is about someone slips and falls, they sue everybody, whether or not the contractor behaved reasonably.' The City of Toronto already has a salt management plan and a web page with a list of tips to minimize use in winter. City hall recommends Torontonians 'shovel first' before applying salt, and consider using sand as a traction aid. The federal government, meanwhile, has a set of practices for the use of road salt, finalized in 2004. Saxe said despite those guidelines, there is a need for more. The municipal plan only applies to City Hall's own operations, and solving the liability issue is 'the province's job,' she said. It's understandable that the companies err on the side of not getting sued – they're often family businesses that are too small to survive a lawsuit, Saxe said. 'Once somebody gets sued, it doesn't matter whether they were right or not, it's going to cost them an awful lot of money, and lawyers are eye-wateringly expensive,' she said. Saxe said despite Torontonians' broad concerns about road and sidewalk safety in winter, she expects council to pass the proposal without any fuss. She noted a letter to council from the trade association Landscape Ontario as evidence that what she's proposing is necessary — and not controversial. LILLEY: Toronto's mayoral race already underway despite contenders playing coy Councillor Chris Moise caught up in yet another naming controversy Councillor Bradford's 'accountability' streaming push falters The contractors 'want to be doing a good job, they know what they're doing is very harmful and they're asking for a standard and protection if they follow it,' Saxe said. The item before council says salt pollution causes 'irreversible' damage to the environment and accelerates the decay of Toronto's infrastructure. Saxe emphasized the harm to fish in Toronto's waterways, and warned it's only getting worse because the effects of salt pollution are 'cumulative.' The snow may melt away, but all that salt has to go somewhere – and much of it becomes part of the environment. Another letter to council from an advocacy group, the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition, says 12 municipalities in the province have passed similar motions this year, including Cambridge, Sudbury, Waterloo and the District of Muskoka. jholmes@
CBC
13-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
'It will kill life': Cambridge councillor urging city to curb road salt use
A Cambridge councillor is hoping to reduce the amount of road salt used by the city, saying overuse could contaminate groundwater and "kill life." "I mean if you add enough salt to anything, it will kill life," Ward 7 Coun. Scott Hamilton said. He is speaking in front of city council on Tuesday to present a notice of motion that urges the city of Cambridge – and ultimately the province of Ontario – to tackle the problem of road salt. This comes a week after Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe presented a similar notice of motion during a regional council meeting. Hamilton said the "spirit of this motion is to ask the province," as they have the jurisdictional authority to do significant change. Hamilton says Cambridge uses 5,856 tons of salt per year. With salt registered as a "toxic substance" under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, he said there is inherent danger in its overuse. Several studies support Hamilton's claim. Ottawa Riverkeeper, a non-profit based in Ottawa that advocates for sustainable use of the Ottawa River, found in a study they published in January that among water samples taken from streams across the National Capital Region, " the vast majority were toxic to wildlife due to road salt levels." The five-year study, which started in the winter of 2019-2020, found that only 10 per cent of 500 water samples had safe levels of chloride. Chloride is a "key component" of road salt, the report explained. In a separate study, Taryn Smit, an ecologist volunteering with the Canadian Conservation Corps, explained that too much salt can make living organisms "become sick or die." "Think about if you have not had enough water and now you're starting to get headaches, feel sick and dehydrated." she explained. "The same kind of process will happen with anything that lives in the stream of the river because there's salt in the water." Hamilton said this is why he hopes to see changes on the provincial level. "Whether you're in Guelph, Preston, Hespeler, Blair, you're affected all the same by the quality of our drinking water," he said. Waterloo mayor presented a similar motion Last Tuesday, Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe presented a notice of motion at regional council that also deals with salt pollution. Joe Salemi, the executive director of Landscape Ontario, was one of the delegates who spoke to council about the motion. Salemi urged the Ontario governmet to develop limited liability legislation, create and fund an expert stakeholder advisory committee, and send the resolution to all municipalities. At that meeting, North Dumfries Mayor Sue Foxton expressed concern about the limited liability legislation. "When you waive the right to lay the liability on someone, you're giving up your rights," Foxton said. "You're also allowing people to be negligent." Hamilton said he hopes Cambridge will support his motion in May when he outlines similar steps to deal with the over salting problem in that city and the province as a whole. Similar to McCabe's motion, Hamilton will bring up the development of a limited liability legislation, a public awareness campaign about best salt practices, the creation of an "expert stakeholder advisory committee" that would advise the province about the best courses of action, and a review of bylaws to support further reductions in salt use. Hamilton says he hopes the public will see his motion in a positive light, explaining that his motion is meant to be "ultimately for our own benefit." "If we have toxic drinking water, if levels of sodium chloride in our water are at unhealthy levels and it's at the point where it's killing off our ecosystems, our plants, in our lakes and our rivers, I think ultimately this [plan] is definitely a net positive," he explained. "The majority of the public would understand that."
