Despite an overall increase in total road salt used over the past 14 years (the data record in this manuscript), there has been a 26% reduction in the rate (normalized as tonnes of salt per cm of snow per km of road) of road salt application by the City of Toronto since that city implemented mitigations from the Road Salt Code of Practice. The ecological benefit of the reduced use of road salt was approximated by comparing the estimated 26% salt reduction to the distribution of chloride tolerances that has been recently published by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (i.e., CCME). Species sensitivity distributions predict that between 1 and 14% of taxa would benefit from a 26% reduction in chloride concentrations in surface waters. Assuming that a typical ‘healthy’ Canadian watercourse might support between 100 and 200 species of fish, invertebrates and plants, the Code of Practice might provide benefit to between 14 and 28 species. However, the net ecological benefit of implementing the Code may be undermined in rapidly urbanizing watersheds where road networks continue to expand at a rate of 3–5% per year and chloride loads to urban streams are steadily increasing.
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Research Article|
August 27 2013
Ecological benefit of the road salt code of practice
Bruce W. Kilgour;
1Kilgour & Associates Ltd, 16, 2285C St. Laurent Boulevard, Ottawa, Ontario, K1G 4Z6, Canada
E-mail: [email protected]
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Bahram Gharabaghi;
Bahram Gharabaghi
2School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada
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Nandana Perera
Nandana Perera
2School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada
3Computational Hydraulics Int., 147 Wyndham St N., Guelph, Ontario, N1H 4E9, Canada
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Water Quality Research Journal (2014) 49 (1): 43–52.
Article history
Received:
April 15 2012
Accepted:
December 02 2012
Citation
Bruce W. Kilgour, Bahram Gharabaghi, Nandana Perera; Ecological benefit of the road salt code of practice. Water Quality Research Journal 1 February 2014; 49 (1): 43–52. doi: https://doi.org/10.2166/wqrjc.2013.129
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