Road salt supplies strong across state

BREWER – While some regions of the country are facing a shortage of road salt for the coming winter, Maine is one of the lucky ones.

Salt supplies remain strong among Maine towns and wholesalers, although the price has increased dramatically in the past five years.

“Right now I don’t see any problems,” Brewer Public Works Director Dave Cote said last week. “I’ve already talked to our supplier and, though it’s early in the season, they’re not too concerned about it.”

Bangor Public Works Director Dana Wardwell had a similar observation. Wardwell said he had not heard of any shortages. He said the city usually budgets for 5,000 tons of salt every year, and the supply for this year “was all in place. I’m not aware of any shortages.”

Ivan MacPike of Maine Salt in Hermon said he was aware that some sections of the Midwest were having difficulty getting salt, but that the situation in Maine is fine. MacPike said the Canadian mine that is the source of his salt declined to give him an open-ended contract this time, a policy it had instituted in the past. This year, however, the company issued him a contract for a specific amount, which he speculated was because of shortages in other parts of the country.

“I’m not concerned about shortages,” MacPike said last week. “The shortages in the Midwest concern me, but right now we have plenty of salt.”

The Midwestern states near the Great Lakes are confronted with much higher prices and shrinking supplies. The Associated Press reported last week that the situation could result in slippery roads this winter in many communities as officials struggle to keep pavement clear of snow and ice without breaking their budgets.

Heavy snow last year heightened demand for salt in that region and now many towns can’t find enough of it. The shortage could force many cities to salt fewer roads, increasing the risk of accidents. Other communities are abandoning road salt for less expensive, but also less effective, sand or sand-salt blends.

“The driving public may be the ones who suffer on this,” said Robert Young, highway superintendent for northwestern Indiana’s LaPorte County, which has 20,000 tons of salt on hand, only half as much as needed to last a normal winter. Because of the shortage, three companies refused to bid on the county’s request for more.

In Chesterton, Ind., about 135 miles northwest of Indianapolis, salt suppliers allotted the town only the 800 tons it uses in an average year, even though last year’s snowfall was double the normal amount.

Last year, Chesterton paid Morton Salt $41.23 a ton for road salt. This year’s quote came in at $103.63.

The salt industry says the increased demand and higher fuel costs are to blame. But some officials insist salt prices have spiked more dramatically than fuel.

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. Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, for instance, got four to six times their typical amounts.

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 had also been depleted, according to Dick Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a trade group.

The rising cost of gasoline and diesel compounded the situation, Hanneman said. Road salt, which, unlike table salt, is sold in large crystals, is taken by barge and truck from mines in Kansas, Louisiana and Texas. Some is shipped from as far away as Chile in South America. Maine receives much of its salt by barge from Canada. Most of that salt is delivered to Searsport and South Portland, MacPike said.

MacPike said he had encountered situations where demand in the middle-Atlantic states prompted suppliers to redirect salt destined for Maine to those other markets. When the stockpile in Searsport dried up last winter, he accepted deliveries from South Portland, then Portsmouth and then Boston.

“It certainly adds to the expense the further you have to ship it,” MacPike said.

Cote said Brewer bulk-purchases its salt through the Penobscot County Council of Governments. He said he orders 2,000 tons of salt each year, which is typical for a standard winter. The city needed more last year as it recorded 120 inches of snow, compared to 75 inches in an average year.

“It costs more to mine it, it costs more to truck it, it costs more to ship it,” Cote said.

He noted that the cost of salt had increased from $38 a ton five years ago to $67 a ton for this winter.

BDN writer Walter Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report.