An increase in demand and higher prices are making road salt difficult to come by this winter across the Midwest.
But city and county officials said they expect to have enough salt to last the winter.
Across Ohio, salt prices have jumped between 50 and 300 percent since last year, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation's Analysis of Ohio's Road Salt Market and 2008-2009 Price Increase.
In Athens, prices increased from $56 a ton last year to $106 dollars a ton, said Michael Canterbury, deputy engineer for operations in Athens County.
Athens city, county and township put out a bid together in August for the most inexpensive salt distributor to save money, Canterbury said. They requested 5,500 tons but only received about 2,200 tons from Morton Salt.
The salt was divided with about 1,000 tons going to the county, 900 to the city and 300 to the township.
Because it put its bid out in the summer, the county has enough salt to get through the winter, even though it did not get as much as it asked for, Canterbury said.
I've been fortunate; I'm not hurting as bad as other counties
he said. We were quick enough and when we heard they were having problems with the salt we did ours earlier than normal.
This year's price increase in Ohio is caused by three factors, said Nancy Burton, spokeswoman for ODOT.
Last year's harsh winter caused unprecedented salt consumption, which depleted stockpiles, Burton said. More than 20.3 million tons of salt were used nationwide, including 906,623 tons by ODOT.
Athens County used about 500 tons, and the city of Athens used 550 tons, completely using their reserves.
States were bidding for unusually large amounts of salt this year, which raised prices, Burton said.
Costs were also affected by the increase in fuel costs and damages to salt barges by floods and hurricanes, according to the ODOT analysis.
Another factor is the lack of competition between salt suppliers, Burton said. This year, most counties only received one bid, so there was no competition to bring down prices, according to the ODOT analysis.
The way salt is sold through minimum-maximum contracts also affected prices, she said. Customers agree to buy a set amount of salt with the understanding that the salt distributor has salt on reserve in case they run out.
With larger orders for salt, suppliers had to put more on reserve, making it more difficult to meet clients' needs.
These factors created a perfect storm
making it much more difficult for cities and counties to get salt, said Morton Satin, director of Technical and Regulatory Affairs for The Salt Institute, a non-profit association for salt companies.
There is salt out there; it is just a matter of negotiating to get a hold of it
Satin said.
Although ODOT has enough salt to keep its 39,000 miles of highway safe, some cities and counties did not get any response to their bid, leaving them with very little salt, Burton said.
At least 12 cities and counties, including Logan, have participated in a salt assistance program with ODOT, and numbers continue to increase,
Burton said.
One way to ensure places have enough salt to last the winter is to be more efficient, Burton said. Through its Smart Salt Strategy, ODOT is attempting to be 30 percent more efficient with its salt this year, she said.
In Athens County, Canterbury mixes one bucket of salt with five to seven buckets of cinders or river gravel to save resources. So far the county has used about 200 tons but has more than 500 more in storage, Canterbury said.
The city is also attempting to conserve salt, reinstating an old policy of only salting highways, main roads and hills and intersections of residential areas, said Curtis Mayle, street maintenance specialist. The city has used about 300 tons of salt and has about 480 in reserve, he said.
Mayle said he also mixes one bucket of salt with six buckets of cinders.
I'm not saying we overused salt
but (last year) it was cheaper and we could get it more easily
Mayle said. But now we're only getting what we get. So we just have to make sure we aren't wasting it.
As long as the winter continues to be mild, the city and the county shouldn't run out of salt, Mayle said.
Unless we have a snow that snows for a month straight I think we'll be OK
he said. If we do run out
we'll use cinders and sand.
But both Canterbury and Mayle said that if salt prices remain high, it could take money away from other necessary maintenance projects in the summer.
Burton said there is no way of knowing if prices will continue to rise next winter.
We're a month into the season
and we still have a long way to go
she said. Our priority is getting through this winter.
