Posted: February 2, 2023
Easy on the Salt, please!
What can you do when you discover an extreme case of oversalting? One of Ottawa Riverkeeper’s community scientists was recently confronted with this issue at the very spot where he was monitoring for road salt in Bilberry Creek at Pierre Roque Park.
Written by Peter Lefebvre, a member of Ottawa Riverkeeper’s road salt monitoring program.
My kids grew up beside Bilberry Creek; we have walked, hiked, climbed around, and waded barefoot through our little waterway for over 25 years—never suspecting that so much salt could be coursing through that beautiful stream in the winter!
In 2022, my son saw a call for volunteers on the Ottawa Riverkeeper website and suggested that we offer our help together—something to keep us engaged in the watershed during the winter months. So, we signed up to help monitor conductivity/salt in the tributaries to the Ottawa River.
The work was a great fit for us because we spend most of our leisure time outdoors—usually in a canoe or kayak—in all weather conditions, including during the winter when we typically ski or snowshoe to hammock or hot-tent in the deep woods. We’re especially fortunate because we get to do all that within a few hundred kilometers of our homes in Orleans!
In our introduction to the Riverkeeper Salt Program, we learned about how chloride in our waterways never depletes itself—it just lives on forever, affecting every living creature and plant along its inexorable path to the ocean. I guess I just thought that salt eventually “went away”, but it doesn’t. We also learned that ‘some’ salt is a necessary evil – unfortunately a lot of it just dissolves away into our rivers, never serving a safety-related purpose.
Equipped with our new-found understanding of the devastating effects of salt in our waterways—and a groovy handheld conductivity sampling device—Ottawa Riverkeeper’s Scientist assigned us to monitor Bilberry Creek, and since it was almost in our backyard, it made our collection process nice and straightforward.
This year is our second year of monitoring, and the location we are sampling is near a pedestrian bridge that joins the park and crosses the creek. We noticed in the previous year that this paved pathway which meanders through the park was ‘more-than-generously-salted’ you could say. We didn’t travel on this path the previous year, but this year it became obvious that the path was being completely blanketed in road salt!
Worse, however; the salt blanket continued uninterrupted right over the little wooden pedestrian bridge that crosses over the creek—even though the bridge itself was clearly marked “DO NOT APPLY SALT OR CALCIUM”. It was shocking to think of the volume of salt being drained into the creek as it dissolved. That combined with all the other road salt being washed into our creek makes for some pretty toxic water during melts and run-offs.
Our measurements of the creek water during these periods have been extraordinarily high—to the point of toxicity for anything living. Recently I took a video of the salt-blanketed path, thinking that we “have to do something to reduce this”. When I got home and showed my wife the video, she offered to ask our City Councillor if they could help us reduce the amount of salt on this path, since it was so close to the creek and river.
Our City Councillor’s response was incredibly helpful. She forwarded the short video that I took of the salt on the path to the right people in Parks who quickly recognized the problem and wrote us to confirm it would be addressed immediately! And indeed, I returned only a few days later for another water sample to find that the path was now moderately salted, and the bridge was clear of salt altogether!
This tiny overall reduction of salt felt like a real success for us and the whole watershed, so we wanted to share with the people who inspired us to take action in the first place; the Ottawa Riverkeeper team. Thanks for all you do to make sure my son and daughter can share this beautiful creek with their kids someday, and maybe wade barefoot in the cool running water.
Awesome dudes, that’s one of the many
reasons
why I love you bro 😎!!
How wonderful to read this! It really takes me back! Great job, Peter and Evan! ❤️Ellen Savage
This is some of the most “meaningful” work that we’ve done, thanks again to our Ottawa Riverkeeper for empowering us to save our Rivers!
I love this story, thanks for going the extra mile to change the salt application at this site!
Great stuff, Peter & Evan! Way to champion your local waterway, big ups!!
Thanks so much you two, this inspires me to speak up for, and use, less or no salt. Together we can clean up our precious waters!
Kudos to you and your family. Well done guys, well done. Beyond inspiring ❤️❤️
Great work! Thanks so much.