Road salt may cause cancer, says B.C. researcher
Last Updated: Saturday, January 1, 2000 | 9:47 AM ET
CBC News
Hundreds of thousands of tons of road salt are used every winter across the country to keep roads free of ice. The salt eventually washes into the water table. That horrifies Foster.
Using data from the United States, he compared various types of cancers with more than 200 possible causes. He says the strongest correlation in areas where people were dying from cancer, was with road salt.
Foster theorizes that a substance used to keep the road salt from caking is the culprit.
And it's not just road salt we need to worry about. Foster says some forest fire-retardants carry the same anti-caking agent. It's not known how many tons of that make their way into our water supply.
Foster says he's glad the federal government is considering a ban on road salt. In the meantime, he says more comparative studies must be done.
