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Rock salt shortage not felt locally

Photo

Photo by Bill Olmsted

In between loading city plows on 12/28/07, a front end loader moves and mixes the salt/sand mixture the City of Janesville spreads on winter streets. The storage barn was nearly half full on Friday but truck after truck were coming in for resupply and a vendor was bringing in several truckloads of new salt druing today's storm.

JANESVILLE — The price of road salt has jumped 250 percent for some Midwestern communities but not for Rock County, Walworth County or the city of Janesville.

Thanks to a contract that allows the counties and Janesville to bid with the state's Department of Transportation, the municipalities aren't as hard hit by the salt shortage and skyrocketing prices.

Rock County and Janesville public works officials say they're facing a price increase of about 11 percent.

The state is locked-in with North American Salt, meaning municipalities can get the same number of tons as last year at the same price, plus an escalator, said Ben Coopman, Rock County public works director.

For salt over and above the 12,000 tons Rock County purchased last year, North American Salt will charge 18 percent more, Coopman said.

Rock County typically uses 9,000 tons of salt a winter, but needed one-third more last year because of the heavy and frequent snowfalls, Coopman said.

Last year, the county paid $41.39 a ton. This year, the price will be $44.70, he said.

In Walworth County, Public Works Director Shane Crawford said the county will pay $38 a ton, about $1 more than last year.

Not all Midwest communities are so lucky.

Chesterton, Ind., which is about 135 miles northwest of Indianapolis, last year paid Chicago-based Morton Salt $41.23 a ton. This year's quote came in at $103.63.

Morton spokesman Joe Wojtonik said the company increased production at its mines after orders rose between 8 and 28 percent.

"We're producing at the highest practical safe level we can," he said.

The United States used a near-record 20.3 million tons of road salt last year, largely because areas from the Northeast to the Midwest had heavier-than-average snowfall.

The harsh winter left salt storage barns virtually empty. Communities that needed additional salt late in the season had trouble finding it because supplier stockpiles also had been depleted, according to Dick Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a trade group.

This year, many states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, requested bids early, Hanneman said, and salt orders grew significantly. Five states increased their orders by a total of 2 million tons over last year.

Walworth County started planning to restock its salt supplies in spring, Crawford said.

"We are not anticipating any salt shortages at all this year," he said.

Janesville bid through the state contract for about an 11 percent increase, but also bid with other southern Wisconsin municipalities to secure additional salt that they're not obligated to buy, Operations Director John Whitcomb said.

That bid price came in at $56.68.

"It's kind of a security blanket for us," Whitcomb said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this story.