Hundreds of snowfighters gathered at the Ontario Good Roads Association’s Snow & Ice Colloquium earlier this week and celebrated the steady progress of their efforts to upgrade their salt management operations.

As the lead-off speaker, I pointed out that “Sustainable Salting” in current parlance is a direct evolutionary outgrowth of the Salt Institute’s Sensible Salting program begun in the 1960s. The real progress, however, in Canada, has taken place in the past decade with adoption and implementation of a Road Salts Code of Practice.

Oftentimes, satisfaction is achieved by adopting best management practices and basking in the glow that all that can be done is being done. Canada, however, has gone a step further: it has put in place an independent investigation of whether the recommended best practices are actually delivering environmental improvements. A half day of the two day conference heard from the scientists conducting those studies.

Dr. Michael Stone of the University of Waterloo reported a survey showing that more than 70% of Canadian snowfighting agencies have adopted written salt management plans (SMPs) governing their storage and application of salt (which represents 97% of the deicing materials used in the country). Unfortunately, surveys show that many SMPs may not be tied directly to operations; 43% haven’t been modified in the past five years. In another successful area, 63% of the agencies conduct annual operator training (though only 21% train snowfighting contractors). And more than half (51%) have identified “salt vulnerable areas” in their SMPs, areas where special salt management practices are utilized.

Overall, snowfighting technology and techniques are advancing sharply. Reports filed with Environment Canada show 1) salt usage is up sharply the past two winters, 2) 95% of the salt storage facilities are under cover and on impermeable pads, 3) 85% of snowfighting trucks use computerized ground-speed spreader controls, 4) 43% of the vehicles can do pre-wetting and 30% of the agencies employ anti-icing strategies.

Measurement not only leads to better accountability tomorrow, but helps today for us to see the need for more action in closing out antiquated, salt-wasting spreader technologies, giving better guidance for identification of vulnerable local ecosystems and training private sector snowfighters.