These are the sidewalks of Toronto's fair and fine Distillery District, a couple of days after a light dusting of 2 cm of snow:
As you can see, there is no snow around, but plenty of road salt. The place looks like the bottom of a pretzel bag!
This is a scene repeated throughout the cities of the nation, every day, from November to April. While one can understand some over-zealotry in the salting of major highways, why is there a thick coating of the stuff on historic brick walkways bearing no snow or ice? The sodium and chloride and whatever Union Carbide chemical treats they add to it must surely be melting the handsome bricks almost as fast as they melt the thin veneer of snow.
Have we become so soft, as a supposedly nordic peoples, whereby a slight snowfall that would melt naturally within hours must be met with a saturation bombing campaign on every sidewalk and roadway?
Yes, indeed we have. The merest trace of precipitation is sure to greet a pedestrian with the crunch of a crust of salt crystals beneath their Grebs. The salt is rough on footwear and dogs' paws. But also pity the ecosystem, for the annual onslaught of road salt that percolates into groundwater, lakes and streams and the countless problems it causes.
Harold D. Foster, some professor from the University of Victoria, notes, "Most road salt contains sodium ferrocyanide as an anti-caking and corrosion inhibitor. Under acidic conditions, in the presence of strong sunlight, this compound is known to break down, generating toxic cyanide forms, including hydrogen cyanide. These toxins appear to have caused serious fish kills as the result of sodium ferrocyanide’s use by the BC Ministry of Forests in fire retardants. Recent animal studies also have shown chronic cyanide exposure may be deleterious to liver and kidney functions and causes both time- and dose-dependent DNA fragmentation, accompanied by cytotoxicity."
http://www.elements.nb.ca/theme/transportation/salt/salt.htm
The modern day technique of road salting is an example of how technology and the convenience it creates makes us lazy and stupid, and richly deserving of whatever payback nature ultimately has in store in return for our raping and pillaging of it. We can buy these bags labeled "road salt" for cheap, and it sure beats shoveling and scraping, so why not dump it everywhere? Better to leave some leftover in case it snows next week! Maybe sand works better than salt in dealing with snow and ice, but it's sooo messy! Why not use the magic chemical that makes the snow go away, and then vanishes itself!
When people head down the salted streets in their gas guzzlers to buy those "green" light bulbs this winter, well, I hope they give a thought to the pretzel-flavored surface they are driving on, and cytotoxicity, and groundwater contamination, and male bullfrogs with female genitalia. Maybe, between bites of the doughnut, they might consider getting snow chains or something.
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