Guide for Management of Salt Vulnerable Areas

Road Salts are used in Canada as de-icing and anti-icing chemicals for winter road maintenance. A comprehensive scientific assessment by Environment and Climate Change Canada determined that in sufficient concentrations, road salts pose a risk to plants, animals and the aquatic environment. Pursuant to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Government of Canada subsequently published a Code of Practice for the Environmental Management of Road Salts (Code). The intent of the Code is to reduce the negative impacts of road salts on Canadian ecosystems. The Code recommends that road authorities prepare salt management plans that identify actions they will take to improve their practices in salt storage, general use on roads, snow disposal and that identify areas as being vulnerable to road salts.

A Salt Vulnerable Area (SVA) is an area in a receiving environment that may be particularly sensitive to road salts where there may be a risk to ‘receptors’ such as groundwater, drinking water, aquatic life (fish and fish habitat), vegetation (native or agricultural) or species at risk. Road organizations may determine the level of vulnerability and the need to implement additional salt management measures in SVAs such as:

• Using technologies that further optimize the use of road salts;
• Using environmentally, technically and economically feasible alternatives to road salts;
• Increasing monitoring and measuring of chlorides and/or their impacts; or,
• Considering location and protection of vulnerable areas in the upgrading of existing roads.

Many road organizations have indicated that they do not have the capacity or expertise to manage SVAs without further guidance. In addition, the five-year Review of Progress on the Code of Practice for the Environmental Management of Road Salts (Environment Canada, 2012) stated that the identification of SVAs was a weak component in most salt management plans. The Review further recommended that a framework be established that road organizations can adopt and implement for protection of SVAs.

National targets developed to measure performance of the Code include an indicator for the number of organizations that have identified SVAs and prepared an action plan to protect them. To help achieve this target, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) initiated the development of guidance to establish common standards for identification of SVAs.

A multi-disciplinary SVA Subgroup has been formed to assist ECCC in developing guidance on SVA identification, reviewing drafts, providing input on winter maintenance expertise, and ensuring that up-to-date science and practical considerations are taken into account.

Objective

The objective of this contract is to develop a guide for road organizations in identifying, categorizing and planning for mitigation of impacts of road salts on SVAs.

The following four receptors in the environment will be addressed in the SVA Guide:

1. Drinking water (surface water and groundwater, including wells);
2. Aquatic life (vegetation and animals);
3. Species at risk;
4. Valued land for agriculture, recreation or conservation.

The SVA Guide will meet the following essential characteristics:

• User-friendly with easy-to-follow steps;
• Easily accessible in print and on-line;
• Flexible to adjust to various levels of granularity of the information (local, municipal and regional) and types of receptors being investigated;
• Versatile to accommodate for varying data on quantity of road salts applied within a territory by different tiers of users (i.e., municipalities, provinces, the public and the private sector);
• Provide a level of confidence in the results; and,
• Transparent based on a qualitative and/or quantitative model that can be explained and demonstrated.

Preliminary work on the approach, the procedure and the mapping tool (for aquatic life only) have been completed to provide direction, and to assess the work scope and feasibility. The use of the following three internal reports will be the basis for conducting the work under this contract and will be made available to any bidder upon request. Note that an excerpt from Document 3 providing the Geographical Information System (GIS) development notes has been provided in Appendix A to these Terms of Reference. Specific details on the coding developed for Lake Simcoe (testing site) will also be provided to the winning bidder.

Document 1. A framework for understanding and evaluating SVA (Kilgour and Associates, January 2012). Recommendations for a framework to identify and assess SVAs and decision-making steps were provided, including key components, thresholds and practical advice towards the development of a detailed step-by-step guide. 

Document 2. Salt Vulnerable Areas – Research Project (nXstream Technology, April 2014). Recommendations for a practical approach to assess environmental impacts from road salts on all types of receptors were provided and a prototype of a GIS based application was developed for mapping SVAs for aquatic life. 

Document 3. Zones Vulnérables aux Sels – Rapport Final (nXstream Technology, March 2015). A web-based GIS mapping tool to identify SVAs for protection of aquatic life was developed and assessed at one site (Lake Simcoe, Ontario). Additional assessment at other sites and under various conditions of salt application was recommended.

The Guide will help road organizations with decision-making for management of SVAs and will allow road managers to readily determine priority areas where salt management measures and additional efforts should take place to reduce the impact of salt application on the environment. Road organizations using the Guide will improve their decision making capacity through an efficient implementation of the steps required to identify SVAs.