Prices make cities wish they could hold the salt
Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram
It’s gonna be an expensive winter, at least when it comes to road salt.
Government officials responsible for keeping the roads clear of snow and ice expect the cost of road salt to shoot up as much as 25 percent this year.
“Across the board, prices have gone up, whether it’s in your kitchen or as we try to take care of the streets,” said Ohio Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Varner.
Although increased fuel and transportation costs are contributing factors to the rise in prices — asphalt also shot up in price this year — last year’s hard winter led to the nation using more salt than normal and leading to an increased demand this year, said Richard Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute.
For instance, Illinois ordered 29 percent more salt — the equivalent of an extra 400,000 tons — than it did last year, he said.
“Everybody was really scrambling at the end of last year,” Hanneman said. “Customers and mines were tapped out.”
While salt mines are working as fast as they can to churn out salt, they can produce only so much. Hanneman also said problems with transportation this summer, including flooding along the Mississippi River, have made shipping salt tougher than usual.
Ohio hasn’t bid its salt out yet for the coming year, but Chief Deputy Lorain County Engineer Bill Holtzman said he has no doubt it will be more expensive.
The county, like most places, works with ODOT to get its salt.
In 2006, Holtzman said, the county paid $34.83 per ton of salt. In 2007, the price rose to $35.23 a ton. The per ton cost could shoot up past $40 if experts’ predictions come true.
In the winter of 2006-07, the county used 7,619 tons of salt to keep the roads clear. Last winter, the 270 miles of road the county is responsible for keeping clear took 9,527 tons of salt, which cost the county about $335,000.
If the county uses the same amount of salt this year and the price rises as expected, that could mean another $84,000.
Gary Dickerson, the Elyria Street Department superintendent, said he too expects the salt price to rise, although he’s hoping the city won’t need to use the 13,838 tons of salt it went through last year.
“Hopefully, we’ll have less severe weather,” he said.
A spokesman for Cargill Salt, which handled Lorain County’s salt contract through the state last year, declined to comment, but Joe Wojtonik, a spokesman for Morton Salt, said prices are going up across the industry.
Even the salt homeowners use to keep their driveways clear will likely jump in price, Wojtonik said.
“It’s unfortunate, but it’s kind of like your other commodities,” he said.
The price increase is prompting ODOT to consider expanding an experimental program from last year that mixes beet juice with salt, allowing it to work at lower temperatures and last longer, Varner said. The mixture wasn’t used by ODOT in Lorain County last year, but it might be used this year.
Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.
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Filed by Brad Dicken | The Chronicle-Telegram July 19th, 2008 in Top Stories. Popularity: 9% |
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