Blue Crab Boulevard

Pass The Salt

The New York Times reports that local governments in many areas are running critically short of a vital resource needed to keep the roads open.

They're running out of salt.

Local governments in New England and in the Midwest are running critically low on road salt, the result of a stream of winter weather that has hit the regions in recent months.

“We are, for all practical purposes, out of salt,” said Bruce Hoar, director of public works in South Burlington, Vt., adding that other towns in the area face the same problem.

With so many municipalities in need of salt, suppliers cannot ship it out quickly enough. Public works departments are left waiting for days or weeks to receive their orders.

“It’s supply and demand,” said Richard L. Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a nonprofit trade association. “We’re scrambling. We haven’t heard of any agency that hasn’t been able to keep the roads open or safe, but there’s a lot of anxiety.”

Some cities, towns and counties are turning to smaller suppliers, which are charging more.

Christine Daleiden, the highway accounting manager in Fond du Lac County, Wis., said the county, which has used up almost all of its salt, was buying more from a supplier in Minnesota at a price 70 percent higher than the $39.29 per ton the county typically paid.

Ms. Daleiden said that was the cheapest price she could find.

“As far as our budget, it’s going to hurt us,” she said.

The county used 3,357 tons of salt in December, compared with 464 tons in December 2006, Ms. Daleiden said. It is now limiting salt use to hills, curves and intersections. The county is putting sand on roads, but some say it is less effective than salt.

Bryan Osborne, the director of public works in Colchester, Vt., is going to Canada to get extra salt for the town while waiting on a delayed shipment from his normal supplier, which gets salt from western New York. When a storm dumped 14 inches of snow on Colchester last week, Mr. Osborne’s crews were spreading sand rather than salt on the roads.

Back in the early 1980s, one of my duties was to call the Retsof salt mine to bring in large shipments of salt for the utility I worked for. The salt was used mainly for water treatment, although some was also used on the drives and walkways in winter. I remember there was one winter when it became very difficult to get a shipment due to heavy snow and high demand. (The Retsof mine is the one that collapsed back in the mid 1990s.)

It has been a brutal winter in the Midwest, that's for sure. It is currently 0° F outside my door with a nasty wind blowing. The bad salt situation indicates that it has been hard all over the northern regions of the nation.

Environment | Gaius Monday, 11 February , 2008

By Sam Wah, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 9:57 am

Damn that global warming!
By Mockinbird, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 10:08 am

Come on down here to Florida; we’re surrounded by the stuff. Bring a large truck.
By Sam, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 3:12 pm

Here in Salt Lake City, there seems to be plenty of salt to go around. Luckily we have seen a break in the weather in the last week. It is 46 degrees and the piles of snow are slowly melting. Almost seems springlike.
By NortonPete, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 5:59 pm

As the current TV ad for soup goes, “How did you decide to use sea salt?” Then the actor looks out at the sea.

Sodium chloride is sodium chloride regardless of where it comes from.
I bet you couldn’t sell soup if the chef said ” I used road salt”, and then the actor says, “road salt, how did you think of that?”, then the camera pans to a salting truck going down a snowy highway.

Sorry for the nutty post, it is called cabin fever folks.
By Maggie, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 8:42 pm

The Cargill Corporation actually mines salt for several states … below the ground … under Lake Erie, Whiskey Island off the coast of Cleveland, Ohio. You gotta see this! They couldn’t pay me enough!

For some reason the video (first link) jumps out half way through, but you get the idea.

The second link is still shots inside the mine.

http://www.wkyc.com/video/player.aspx?aid=22600&bw=

http://www.wcpn.org/news/2001/01-03/0301salt-mine-2.html
By OldeForce, Monday, 11 February , 2008 @ 11:06 pm

The problem here in Colorado, other than the sink-hole on I-25, is that the resort areas have more snow than they can dump! They’ve filled up areas they usually use, some to over 70 feet. Park County, and especially the area around the small town of Fairplay, is a disaster area as high winds and blowing snow have cut off about 100 homes from food and other supplies. Down here, SE of Denver, we’re waiting for the snows of March.
By Maggie, Tuesday, 12 February , 2008 @ 12:32 am

OldeForce

“REDRUM” comes to mind …