What effect will the thousands of tons of road salt have upon our river systems once the thaw arrives?
Martin...:

Good question martin, bring on the scientists! I dont know, but judging by the severe lack of salt in our area, there will be less of an effect than in previous yrs!!!!

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TOTAL FISHING

Being discussed here,
Salt in the Wound?

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I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,9 bean rows will I have there and a hive for the honey bee.

This subject has been widely studied over here in the US because many of the northern tier states have long winters and therefore use millions of tons of road salt which ends up in the watersheds.

Generally from what I've read of the studies, they say that salt doesn't have much of an impact and isn't considered a threat to rivers and lakes. I do remember that wetlands are an area of concern because the lack of water flow means that salt levels can build up in these areas, but as far as an impact on rivers and trout, there doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Given the fact that we have snow on the ground and salt on the roads from November to April every year, I'd think we'd be seeing the problems by now if there were any.

Grouse

The coarse fishing fraternity have a view that quantities of road salt washed into rvers during heavy rain/thaw has a very detrimental effect, at least on on the fish for a week or so.

Probably does not have a long tern effect - not sure myself - but some suggest it ruins the fishing for a time.

My thoughts here (have done some work on road runoff):

Big floods!!!!!!

There is also growing evidence that heavy metals are getting into Rivers from Rubber car Tyres, as the rubber is washed from the roads down the Drains and into the water courses. A lesson for anyone reinforcing a river bank DONT USE OLD TYRES as the Chemicals are leached from the Tyre by water

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Allan
Only dead fish go with the flow.

Cadmium is the heavy metal that you find in tyre crumb (part of vulcanisation process I'm told). Zinc comes from crash barriers and copper from brake shoes. However, again, the effects of these metals are not especially readily detected (wherease effects of highway-derived PAHs have been shown). You also get PAHs in tyres though...

All of the above completely pale into insignificance compared to the effects of agricultural runoff (nitrates/phosphates or just physical effects of soil from tilled fields) or low quality sewage effluent and raw sewage from CSOs (combined sewage and surface water drainage system).

Problem is, who is going to pay to fix these big issues? We can put buffer strips of vegetation next to fields to filter some of the nutrients out and encourage farmers to plough at right angles to the slope rather than straight up and down the valley-side (but there are plenty of field drains that bypass buffer strips and the state of the river is not automatically the farmer's first priority, so not easy to pursuade them to lose land to fenced buffer strips).

Then who is going to pay astronomical water rates or some other tax in order to fund the total revamping of the Combined Surface water/sewage Outfall system? Or, to put it another way..What government is going to try to push that agenda of big hikes in rates/taxes for the benefit of the environment?

Basically, it is up to us as the electorate to educate ourselves and push such things further up the agenda.

over a prolonged period of time ,but most of this salt could enter nearly all at once given its raining and thawing very quickly ,contrary to belief fish(this is coarse fish im on about) actually like a "bit" of salt ,most of the continental style groundbaits actually have salt in them ,even most home made bait recipes include salt ,the amount that will enter our system soon as some will already be in will for sure put them off feeding for a few days but they soon recover from it as its very diluted ,salt also acts as a anti bacterial agent if you have ever kept fish it can be used for a multitude of purposes from healing split fins to rectifying swim bladder disorders ,whether salt affects trout in a more detrimental way i cannot say for sure but i could not see it doing any permanent damage ,i will probably be shot down with evidence that changes my mind ??

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

THA CAN TELL A YORKSHIREMAN ,BUT THA CAN'T TELL HIM MUCH !!