In summer heat, Toronto already stockpiling winter road salt
As soon as one winter ends, preparations for next begin with salt imports from Windsor and Cleveland, Ohio.

Thestar.com
July 15, 2014
By Eric Andrew-Gee

In Toronto, winter is always on its way. That’s why road salt suppliers are already stockpiling sodium in savoury pyramids on the waterfront, preparing for the inevitable freeze-over.

At the Rideau Bulk Terminals, a 10-minute walk south of the Gardiner Expressway, mounds of rock salt lie waiting, bound for the roads and driveways of Toronto. The salt comes in on ships from as far as Cleveland and Windsor, a stark reminder that, to paraphrase Robert Frost, nothing warm can stay.

The salt-shipping season kicks off in April. Sifto, Cargill and Windsor Salt are among the big players. By Christmas, the lakers will have brought between 400,000 and 500,000 tonnes of sodium chloride to the Toronto harbour.

Year in, year out, salt and sugar - those traditional rivals - vie with each other to be the most imported product on the waterfront.

“Usually sugar is our number one commodity,” said Deputy Harbour Master Michael Riehl, “but I think this year Mr. Salt might beat it.”

We should be rooting for sucrose: good times for salt companies are bad times for the rest of us. This past winter was so icy, many stores ran out of the lumpy, briny bags people depend on for safe passage to the sidewalk, leading to the creation of an online black market.

Meanwhile, the City of Toronto used 210,000 tonnes of road salt for the 2013-2014 season, about 80,000 tonnes more than average. (At about $100 a tonne, the ice-busting grains are a relative bargain.)

In late October, it’s all hands to battle stations, as the city fills up 18 salt domes, the ones “shaped like a coconut, with a shingle roof,” says Trevor Tenn, a road operations manager for the city’s transportation division. From there, 203 salt trucks sprinkle their cargo over about 5,600 kilometres of road.

Until spring comes, and the cycle begins all over again.