Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all know that road salt is damaging to our vehicles but it’s also providing much harm to our natural world. Research in Canada and the United States shows that road salt is affecting drinking water sources and aquatic life. Levels of contamination to water and sediment near Pickering, Ontario, exceed provincial water quality standards as much as 250 percent due to the amount of salt applied to the roads in winter.
Road salt is increasingly being used here in the North along Ingraham Trail. From the details provided by the Minister of DOT, it shows in the last six years that the increase in salt has gone up 200 percent on our Ingraham Trail road.
The fact is that road salt is not always the best choice for northern road conditions. In order for it to be most effective, temperatures need to stay above minus 10. Some public road authorities have started using liquid salt, but that doesn’t solve the problem of refreezing. As more snow falls and melts into slush, the water reduces the amount of salt and ice forms even faster, requiring more road salt before the road becomes rougher, slippery and more dangerous before it hardens up.
Up here the common source we use on the roads is called gravel. That makes a lot more sense. Unlike gravel, road salt dissolves into the spring runoff. That is particularly disturbing on the Ingraham Trail where the road crosses lakes and comes very close to the shorelines. Water runoff on the highway embankments into nesting areas affects aquatic life.
Dr. Nick Eyles says and recognizes that Environment Canada has pointed out that salt has adversely affected wildlife, plants, water, soil, and in 2001 they even considered adding it to the country’s list of most toxic substances. Instead, in 2004 the government instituted a voluntary code of practice to encourage municipalities to use other de-icing forms. We all know how voluntary practices and codes of conduct usually work out.
In closing, I want to point out that Northerners are a hardy bunch. We do like our salt on our eggs or fish at the dinner table, but we don’t like it in our lakes, rivers and streams. I’ll have questions for the Minister of Transportation later today.
