Swimming Pool Question

[james t kirk]

WOW...this is awesome. I have to give you respect for standing firm on this, even though I disagreed with you in the past or your POV on other things, it doesn’t matter this stuff is important.

It is our environment, our community which will eventually get overwhelmed with care free attitudes like this...such as ohh it’s only a little bit, my contribution will not make a difference, and make any excuse they can to justify being lazy and care free and times that attitude of one issue such as contaminating the environment by a few hundred thousand and it starts to matter.

Regardless if it’s illegal or not, it’s bad for the environment end of story and some municipalities realize but seems like people try to get away with everything they can now days.

It’s little innocent conversations like this that reveal a lot about a person core, their intentions and whether they leave a net positive or net negative after they leave.

Thanks for standing up on this.

I swim in salt pools all the time, I don’t own a pool but this has been very informative especially when my neighbor drains their pool and my backyard gets saturated and some trees already have dried up...maybe time to perform that soils test and see exactly what’s going on, especially since we have a vegetable garden and yes the future effect will matter if they did contaminate my property. I have no idea what type of pool they have but it’s a very serious issue being brought up.

What recourse do I have if my neighbor is infact contaminating my property each time they drain their pool. Two trees have already dried up near their property, and a 3rd one is starting to go plus the lawn looks like shit and seems like it’s getting worse. What would you do. It is located in Toronto.

The first thing I would do is speak to my neighbours and tell them of the bylaw and make sure that they are aware that they need to dump their salt water into the sanitary sewer in their house.

I would also tell them that my position is that the salt water from their dumping has in my opinion killed my vegetation.

I would be polite but firm.

I would then email them a set of minutes as to what was discussed in the conversation so that it is documented and they know you are serious.

As I said, the key is to be polite, but firm.

If they persist in breaking the law then you have to decide whether or not to escalate the issue.

1. Call urban forestry at the City of Toronto. (There are penalties associated with not only Illegal dumping of salt water, but also with killing trees, even on private property.)

2. Call your councillor.

3. Call the Toronto Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), especially if the water is entering a green space or better yet a creek or River. The TRCA has authority over creeks and rivers in Toronto and they will come down very hard on your neighbours.

As to the damage already done on your property, i.e. the contamination of the soil and killing of vegetation, I don't know what the various government agencies can do about that. You would probably need to hire a lawyer and sue your neighbours. You would need to prove damages, which would mean hiring an environmental engineering firm to test the soil to prove it is contaminated. That will be easy. But then you need to prove that the salt contamination killed your trees. That will be more difficult but not impossible. Then you'd need to assess damage with respect to the contaminated soil. The soil would need to be removed and replaced with clean material.

The legal aspects would not be desirable to say the least.

If you can get your neighbours to stop their Illegal dumping of salt water, I think you could plant some trees that are more resistant to salt.

 

[Promo]

As far as comparing your salt water discharge to road salt, that's laughable as well too. The municipality applies salt to roads in the winter months to mitigate the risks associated with travelling in the snow and ice to service the needs of the populace. (I.e. make it safer for millions of commuters.) You are 1 person that has a salt water pool for your luxury. The two are not the same. Further, if you calculated the quantity of salt put on roads per capita, the actual quantity would be relatively low. But compare that to the amount of salt YOU alone dump into the environment for the sake of your ass in a swimming pool, well, I think you'd find that the numbers would tip the salt scale against your argument.

Hmmm - Your argument doesn't add up. I'm not debating the law, just the logic of the law.

I use 1.0 - 1.5 20kg bangs of salt in my pool a year. People with deeper jets are around 3-4 bags a year depending on the size of their pool.

Every winter I use 4-6 20kg bangs of salt on my driveway and walkways and so do virtually ALL my neighbours. This means driveway salt is used at least 5X+ the rate as pool salt. Why haven't the various municipalities banned drivewall salt? Inexpensive alternatives already exist (i.e. sand, kitty litter).

What about municipal dumped sidewalk, road salt and even water softener salt? Almost all will either end-up in the sewers, lawns or water treatment plants at much higher rates than my pool salt.

The fact is virtually every home in the GTA will have 5X+ more salt contamination on their property from driveway, roadway, and sidewalk salt than I will from my pool salt.

The law appears to be ignoring the much higher sources of salt contaminants. Should property contaminants testing as part of a home sale starts to occur in the future, a lot of homeowners will be in big trouble. Perhaps all us homeowners should be asking the city to clean-up our contaminated lawns from their chemical dumpings? (sarcasm)

 

[james t kirk]

Hmmm - Your argument doesn't add up.

I use 1.0 - 1.5 20kg bangs of salt in my pool a year. People with deeper jets are around 3-4 bags a year depending on the size of their pool. Every winter I use 3-6 20kg bangs of salt on my driveway and walkways and so do virtually ALL my neighbours (avoid lawsuits). This means driveway salt is used at 4-5X++ the rate as pool salt. Why haven't the various municipalities banned drivewall salt? Inexpensive alternatives already exist (i.e. sand, kitty litter). Further, if indeed testing occurs virtually every home in the GTA will have 4-5X more salt contamination on their property from driveway salt than I will from my pool salt.

The law appears to be ignoring the much higher source of contaminants and should property contaminates testing as part of a home sale starts to occur in the future, allot of homeowners will be in big trouble.

I use 0 bags of salt in the winter. I just shovel the snow promptly before it gets compacted into ice. If there is ice, I just break it up.

But I did a quick google search and Toronto has been implementing a salt reduction program.

https://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=9297a84c9f6e1410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD


But again, bottom line, road salt is for public safety, pool salt is a luxury most can't afford.

And even putting salt water into the sanitary sewer doesn't mean that the salt gets removed at the treatment plants. You cannot filter out salt as it's dissolved in solution. But by putting salt into the sanitary sewer, you avoid introducing it into the nearest creek or river. When it goes to the treatment plants via the sanitary sewers, it is introduced directly into Lake Ontario quite far out from shore.

It's not perfect, but it's far better than introduction into a shallow creek or stream with a small quantity of water.

I suspect that as environmental legislation tightens in the future, municipalities will need to implement a deicing program that does not involve the use of salt.

 

[Promo]

I swim in salt pools all the time, I don’t own a pool but this has been very informative especially when my neighbor drains their pool and my backyard gets saturated and some trees already have dried up...maybe time to perform that soils test and see exactly what’s going on, especially since we have a vegetable garden and yes the future effect will matter if they did contaminate my property. I have no idea what type of pool they have but it’s a very serious issue being brought up.

What recourse do I have if my neighbor is infact contaminating my property each time they drain their pool. Two trees have already dried up near their property, and a 3rd one is starting to go plus the lawn looks like shit and seems like it’s getting worse. What would you do. It is located in Toronto.

Just so we are clear, you don't know if your neighbour has a salt pool, so you really don't have any idea what is going on.

When homes are built (at least for the last 40+ years) in most municipalities, every property has a water flow plan. Usually there is a dip between houses along the property line on the sides and the back to allow natural drainage (there are proper terms, but I can't remember what they are). Legally, you can't modify the flow. However backwashing the pool onto his back lawn will overwhelm this system in seconds (depending on the size of the pump). Your neighbour is not allowed to do this and it's a prick thing to do, he should be running a drain hose to the curb.

He may or may not be draining salt and chlorine onto your property (plus copper, algae, bacteria, piss, suntan lotion, etc.), but by flooding your property, he's temporarily taking away your enjoyment of your property, could be killing your plants, may be impacting your deck and house foundation, etc. <-- I'd politely ask him to start draining his pool to the curb IMMEDIATELY.

 

[Promo]

I use 0 bags of salt in the winter. I just shovel the snow promptly before it gets compacted into ice. If there is ice, I just break it up.

But I did a quick google search and Toronto has been implementing a salt reduction program.

https://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=9297a84c9f6e1410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD


But again, bottom line, road salt is for public safety, pool salt is a luxury most can't afford.

And even putting salt water into the sanitary sewer doesn't mean that the salt gets removed at the treatment plants. You cannot filter out salt as it's dissolved in solution. But by putting salt into the sanitary sewer, you avoid introducing it into the nearest creek or river. When it goes to the treatment plants via the sanitary sewers, it is introduced directly into Lake Ontario quite far out from shore.

It's not perfect, but it's far better than introduction into a shallow creek or stream with a small quantity of water.

I suspect that as environmental legislation tightens in the future, municipalities will need to implement a deicing program that does not involve the use of salt.

We are basically agreeing, except on one key point. I'm not debating the validity of the law or the environmental damages, I'm saying the law's priorities are screwed-up. Driveway salt should be banned before pool salt.

Most people DO use driveway salt, 2-3 winters ago GTA homeowners bought it in record quantities and we actually ran-out in February. The closer you live to the lake, the more likely the ice comes from the precipitation itself.

You can indeed remove salt from water, Canada's Zenon was famous for their membrane technology and it's used currently in many city desalination plants (Melbourne build the biggest in the world using GE technology).

Even with today's Municipal salt reduction programs (which are several times more expensive and in many cases less effective over GTA temperature ranges), road salt is a small factor. It's spread at 2-8 lbs per 1000 ft2 which is 100 times less concentration than my yearly pool discharges over the same area. In my community they use sand on sidewalks which is great, but it's a hell of a mess to clean-up in the spring considering the large quantities they use.

If you can afford a pool, you can afford a salt system. It's lifetime cost is much less than the price of leather seats in your Audi ...... which incidentally is 2X the cost of my entire "luxury" pool. ;-)

My point: Walkway and driveway salt is a 5X++ greater source of salt pollution than pool salt on lawns and potentially creeks, rivers and storm sewers . If the municipalities were serious about environmental damage, they would be banning driveway salt.