Why good intentions still need a framework
By Jared Jylhä | Saturday, January 24, 2026
I first ran into unintended consequences about 11 years ago, during an exam season at university (Go Ravens!). Pulling an “all-nighter” before a test was almost a badge of honour, everyone did it. The intention was solid: study hard, show up prepared, crush the exam. But the next morning usually told a different story.
I’d stumble in running on fumes, reread the same question three times, and realize half of what I “learned” at 2:17 a.m. had quietly evaporated somewhere between the third coffee and the fluorescent lights. Not because I had bad intentions, but because I skipped a key step: thinking through the whole system. Sleep, memory, stress, focus, performance … they’re all connected.
It’s easy, especially when you’re young, the conditions are extreme, or impacts quietly build over time, to focus on the intended outcome and miss what was set in motion. That’s why the real question is whether we have a framework that helps us see the ripple effects early, before they turn into unintended consequences and externalized costs.
Huntsville’s 2019 high-water event is a helpful reminder that unintended consequences often emerge under extreme conditions, in this case through backflow in the drainage system on John Street. The town explained that the storm outlet near the Boston Pizza parking lot is part of a connected drainage system, and that if river levels rise high enough, water can flow back out through the catch basins. A system designed to move water away in typical conditions pushed water back into streets and properties during a rare event, worsening the impacts. Unfortunately, businesses lost operating days, infrastructure took a beating, and taxpayers absorbed the cost of repairs. I am not saying the decision to build in this area was wrong, but when this rare high-water event hit, unintended consequences occurred, and the costs fell beyond the original decision. That’s exactly why a framework matters: it forces us to plan for how land, water, community and infrastructure interact under extreme conditions, not just how they behave on a normal day.
Now that we’ve all just finished plowing our driveways for what feels like the 10th time this week, winter opens the door to another unintended consequence and externalized-cost story: road salt. We salt roads and driveways to prevent accidents. That intention is valid and important. But salt dissolves, moves with meltwater, and builds up over time as chloride in streams and lakes. The watershed responds to chemistry, not intentions.
Here’s where it gets uncomfortable. Canada’s national long-term guideline for chloride in freshwater is 120 mg/L. But research on soft, low-calcium Canadian Shield lakes, like those in Muskoka, shows that key zooplankton, such as Daphnia, can be harmed at much lower concentrations. There is reduced reproduction and increased mortality observed at concentrations between about 5 and 40 mg/L. — even when we think we are within “acceptable limits.” Muskoka’s very soft waters can reveal unintended consequences sooner than expected.
And once again, the costs do not stay with the decision. Salt is relatively cheap at the point of purchase, but the long-term environmental impacts, monitoring and mitigation, and community costs, such as vehicle repairs and infrastructure strain, are not neatly paid for by the person applying it to a road, sidewalk, or parking lot.
So, what do we do? Do we stop building and stop salting roads? No. We need urban development and safe winter transportation. The answer is not to freeze decision-making. The answer is to improve it. The watershed-scale version of that improvement is what Muskoka Watershed Council describes as Integrated Watershed Management: a framework for decision-making that accounts for connected impacts across land, water, ecology, and community.
After my first (and last) all-nighter, I learned the better strategy is to go to bed, wake up clear, and write the test with a full brain. Just as I realized that sleep, memory, stress, focus, and performance are all connected, so is our watershed, community and economy. Good intentions are important, but they’re not a plan. If we want better outcomes for Muskoka, we need a framework that will help us see the ripple effects before we create them. We need integrated watershed management.
This article was first published by MuskokaRegion.com
Jared Jylha
This is article No. 4 in the current series, Nurturing Our Watersheds, from the Muskoka Watershed Council. The author is Jared Jylhä CM, a collaborator with the council. With deep roots in Muskoka, Jylhä brings a lifelong connection to Ontario’s natural landscapes and a passion for community engagement in his career as senior account director at Well Known Marketing.