The Salt Institute of Canada
The Salt Institute is the Canadian arm of the the Salt Institute, the world's foremost source of authoritative information about
salt (sodium chloride) and its more than 14,000 known uses. The Institute of Canada represents Canadian salt producers. It provides public information and advocates on behalf of its members which are companies which both produce and market sodium chloride.Salt Production in Canada
Every day, each of the earth's 5.9 billion inhabitants uses salt.
Annual salt production has increased over the past century from 10 million tons to over 200 million tons today. Nearly 100 nations have salt producing facilities ranging from primitive solar evaporation to advanced, multi-stage evaporation in salt refineries. There are three major salt deposits in Canada. The Canadian salt industry produces 13.3 million metric tonnes from major rock salt mines in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick and vacuum pan refineries in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; nearly three-fourths was rock salt which is used primarily for highway deicing. Salt production in Canada has steadily increased since Statistics Canada began tracking the industry in 1948.Road Salt Use in Canada
The largest use of dry salt in Canada is to preserve safe winter driving conditions on Canadian roadways. Highways play a vital role in assuring personal and commercial mobility. [See our 3.77 MB RealMedia video]. And good highways are safe highways too. Safety as well as mobility can be jeopardized by poor highway design and construction or by operating procedures which allow unsafe driving conditions -- such as construction work zones, incident management or response to weather emergencies. [See our 4.26 MB RealMedia video]. A major study, Improving Roadway Safety: Current Issues by Mark Edwards, identifies "temporary friction enhancement" through deicing as an effective safety countermeasure. Society cannot, in fact, afford to lose the war against winter. A 1998 study by the economic consulting firm Standard & Poor's DRI found enormous costs associated with blizzards which might shut down local economies; the study details the adverse economic impacts for a blizzard in Ontario and Quebec. Measures such as the "travel rate index" help highway users and highway agencies assess the operating efficiency of their roadways.
Salt was first used in the 1930s in snow and ice control to make roads safe and passable. It wasn't until the Sixties that the use of salt in conjunction with plowing became widespread after winter maintenance personnel learned of its effectiveness. There is now a vast international experience in effective snowfighting and the elements of successful plans for snowfighting. Many cities, like Toronto, have extensive salt management plans.
The public demands safe winter roads making an investment in effective winter maintenance good politics. Today, salt is a necessary and generally accepted part of the winter environment. It provides safety and essential mobility for motorists, commercial vehicles and police, fire and other emergency vehicles. Truckers who must deliver their often-time-sensitive cargos and all other highway users are vitally concerned about road weather conditions. In fact, if responsible agencies fail to keep their roadways clear of ice and snow, they can be sued. Provincial and local transportation agencies have the lead, though an increasing number are using private contract winter maintenance service providers. The Transportation Association of Canada has a good overview of the importance of snowfighting. Some provinces like Ontario, provide public reports online about their services and progress implementing new snow and ice technology solutions. All provinces offer winter travelers' information. Many highway maintenance organizations in Canada, the U.S., Japan and Europe especially depend on detailed weather forecasts, road weather information systems (RWIS) and weather cameras on both bridges and highways to plan their snowfighting operations. RWIS systems now span Canada. Effective snowfighting depends on salt; without salt, there would often be hazardous conditions and even chaos. Yet its use has brought criticism, sometimes justified in the past, when it was used to excess.
For the past half century, policy makers have grappled with the fact that using road salt has adverse impacts on the highway infrastructure and the environment. In the early 1990's the Transportation Research Board did a comprehensive review of the environmental impacts and the alternative products and concluded that salt will remain the deicer of choice in for the foreseeable future. Finland has done a similar review and reached the same conclusion. Environment Canada has concluded its own environmental assessment of road salts (including not only sodium chloride, but calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium chloride) and has launched a national program to improve the management of four chloride deicing salts -- sodium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and potassium chloride. The provinces and local governments who own and operate public highways -- and the salt industry -- are committed to the success of this program.
Snowfighting is a profession and requires planning, proper equipment, training and preparation. Canadian roadway maintenance agencies have adopted new and innovative solutions to snow and ice problems. For example, see what Toronto and Nova Scotia are doing and download a Salt Management Plan template from the Ontario Good Roads Association. Traditionally, salt has been used to deice roadways, but winter maintenance organizations and the Canadian-Strategic Highway Reseach Program are now devoting new priority to advanced technologies and to anti-icing, the preventive, pre- or early-storm treatments to prevent the loss of safe driving conditions. Many research projects are underway and recently completed. One key advance enabling this strategy is the development of better weather forecasting and more effective road-weather information systems. Salt (sodium chloride) brine is increasingly used to pre-wet highway salt before applying it to roadways. The salt industry has pioneered the concept of Sensible Salting -- applying the minimum amount of salt to roadways at the most appropriate times to assure safe traveling conditions. Detailed snowfighting training materials are available from the Salt Institute and from the Transportation Association of Canada (also see their Syntheses of Best Practice for road salts, link below).
Perhaps the most critical management task to ensure proper environmental management of road salt is proper salt storage. The Salt Institute has a program to encourage proper salt storage as does the Transportation Association of Canada. On April 3, 2004, Environment Canada produced a new Road Salt Code of Practice to guide agencies in creating and implementing Salt Management Plans. The Salt Institute congratulates Environment Canada on this achievement.
Agencies with outstanding salt storage may qualify for the Salt Institute of Canada's Excellence in Storage Award (en francais). For those whose programs are still approaching excellence, the application form makes a very useful checklist.