Should Ottawa use beet brine to de-ice its roads?

A car driving on an Ottawa road in winter conditions. (File)

A petition from an Ottawa resident has called for the city to substitute road salt for beet brine in road de-icing, and last week, three guests joined 580 CFRA’s The Morning Rush with Bill Carroll to discuss the idea.

The online petition generated 564 supporters, and CFRA’s Carroll spoke with the guests to better understand whether beet juice is a viable alternative to road salt, and whether the city should consider other winter road de-icing materials.

Why use a road salt alternative?

Many of the concerns with road salting lay in the environmental impacts of the materials used.

“Ottawa’s current method of de-icing is compromising our environment, and it’s time we did something about it,” the petition reads.

In January, Ottawa Riverkeeper, a local charity that aims to protect the Ottawa River, warned that the city’s road salt usage was having devastating effects on the area’s aquatic life.

In March, the city’s Environment and Climate Change Committee directed staff to conduct a review of Ottawa’s road salt usage.

The CEO of Ottawa Riverkeeper says road salt is effective for de-icing, but it can be harmful to the rivers and streams in the surrounding area, both in the short-term and the long-term.

“It’s actually highly toxic to the creatures that depend on our creeks and streams in an urban environment,” Laura Reinsborough told Carroll on 580 CFRA.

According to Christopher Paquette, Ottawa’s program manager of operational and research projects, the city mainly uses rock salt and calcium chloride to de-ice roads.

Reinsborough says the chloride component of many de-icing materials is particularly harmful to aquatic life.

Additionally, Reinsborough notes that salt has corrosive properties and causes damage to both vehicles and roads.

“We look at the Alexander Bridge that’s going to need replacement, one of the main reasons cited for that is corrosion from road salt use,” Rensborough said. “So, we have a longer-term cost incentive to also make sure that we’re not using these highly corrosive and toxic substances.”

Is beet juice used in Ottawa?

Beet juice-based de-icers have been put forward as a less corrosive and more environmentally friendly de-icing material. The material is not currently used by the City of Ottawa to de-ice roads, but it has been tested here before.

Paquette says the city piloted a beet-based di-icer at the Nepean Sportsplex. While effective for de-icing, Paquette notes operational issues with the material, particularly with it being tracked indoors on people’s footwear.

“It’s almost like a molasses-based liquid, and we got a bit of feedback about it tracking into the facility, but it definitely does work as a de-icer,” Paquette said.

Speaking on 580 CFRA, Tim Tierney, city councillor of Beacon Hill-Cyrville Ward, called the pilot project “the beet disaster.”

“Forget the purple, the brown, the stickiness. It’s just a massive disaster,” Tierney said. “I appreciate people that want to look at that, but we have a terrific salt management practice.”

Paquette also says using the material at scale would result in an overall cost increase compared to current practices.

Another tool in the toolbox?

Program manager Paquette says beet brine would likely not be used to replace road salt entirely, rather it would be one of many tools deployed in the city’s winter road management toolbox.

“What the derivative is, is its beet juice mixed with salt brine,” Paquette said. “You’re not really getting away from 100 per cent salt usage when using beet brine. It’s sprayed on the road the same way that you would with our pre-wetting agent that we use now.”

An expansion of the city’s road de-icing arsenal is something Ottawa Riverkeeper is in favour of.

“Ottawa Riverkeeper encourages that we all expand our toolkit, we use more tools to be able to handle messy winter weather, because salt is only good at certain times and in certain places, we’ve got to be using a broader toolkit than that,” Reinsborough said.

Other cities have implemented beet juice into their road clearing programs. For instance, the City of Calgary piloted a project and continues to use a mixture of beet juice and salt brine as an anti-icing material.

The City of Winnipeg also says it uses a beet-based material for snow and ice control, though the city notes it is one of many tools used in the process and not a replacement for traditional salt or sand.

Reinsborough says other materials like sand and gravel should also be used in Ottawa for winter road management, and the CEO has also asked the city to make its salt management plans public.

Paquette says the city intends to release its salt management plan in the near future.

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