Canada: Win for Salt Pollution Coalition

Big Wins for the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition! 🎉

💧 And we’re just getting started 💧

Despite recent challenges in achieving environmental and water justice progress at the government level, moments of success are still emerging – and today, we’re thrilled to share some hopeful wins with you. In this newletter we are updating you on the work of the Ontario Salt Pollution Coalition, a working group of individuals, community groups, and eNGOs who are unified in our pursuit of provincial action on salt pollution to protect water, coordinated by Water Watchers.

Why Are We Doing This Work?

Road Salt Is Polluting Ontario’s Freshwater and a  Province-Wide Response Is Urgently Needed

The widespread use of road salt in Ontario is contributing to the contamination of our freshwater systems. Without more effective management, the long-term consequences will be severe: rising salinity levels in our lakes, rivers, wetlands, and even some sources of drinking water.

Salt pollution disrupts aquatic ecosystems, harming the small organisms that form the foundation of the food web. It also accelerates the deterioration of public infrastructure, damages vehicles and footwear, and causes pain and injury to pets and wildlife.

Salt is not going away.

Unlike many other pollutants, salt does not break down or evaporate. It dissolves easily in water and is extremely difficult and costly to remove once present in the environment.

🎉 12 Municipal Resolutions Passed! 🎉

Since March of this year, the OSPC has been working with several municipalities to pass resolutions aimed at urging the province of Ontario to develop limited liability legislation. If Ontario implements limited liability legislation, parking lot owners and snow managers would follow regulations and provincial Best Management Practices to eliminate hazards on the site. If contractors follow these regulations they would be shielded from the worst slip and fall lawsuits. As a result of this limited liability protection, they could reduce their salt use. Currently, contractors try to shield themselves from lawsuits by using double or more the salt required. We need to fix this!

Additionally, the resolution urges the Province to bring experts together to advise it on how to better protect our environment and water from salt pollution, beyond limited liability. This could include advice on salt management plans, best management practices and on ecologically- protective water quality standards.

💧 Water Wins in These Communities 💧

Bring These Resolutions to Your Municipality!

Do you want to see your community added to the list? We have created a Municipal Resolution Toolkit to help you, including a recorded webinar to guide you through the process. 

💙 Help Us Continue to Support These Initiatives 💙

Water Connects Us All — Help Us Protect It, Together

There is a deep knowing that water is sacred. It nourishes our bodies, our lands, our spirits. For us, water is a living relative- something to be honored, protected, and listened to. But across Ontario, waters are being polluted, ecosystems disrupted, and communities,especially Indigenous ones, are left to carry the burden.

We believe that protecting water is not just an environmental issue, it’s a matter of justice, of love, of responsibility. We believe in a future where all people, all beings, have access to clean, living waters. Where Indigenous rights are not only acknowledged but upheld. Where communities are heard, not harmed.

This work is hard. It asks us to confront injustice, to speak truth to power, to stand beside those who have long been fighting to protect the places they call home. But it’s also full of hope, because every person who joins us strengthens the movement.

We’re asking for your support — not just as a donor, but as someone who believes in something better.

In these times of great strife, and ongoing colonialism and capitalism across so-called “Canada”, we are working harder than ever to create meaningful actions and unite Water Watchers all across Turtle Island.

When you give, you’re doing more than funding a cause, you’re choosing to protect what sustains life, and to walk alongside those who’ve been doing so for generations.

💧 Please give today – Water needs all of us 💧
Because when we protect water, we protect everything.

Upcoming Webinar on Salt Pollution

Join us at a TRCA webinar – Challenges to Reducing Winter Salt Use: Addressing Limited Liability in Ontario 

In Gratitude, 
Water Watchers