Road-Salt Prices Soar as Winter Looms

Already squeezed by high gas prices and tight budgets, some cities and counties across the nation, including those in Kentucky and Indiana, are facing another cold slap: The cost of spreading salt on area roads this winter is doubling.

Major salt suppliers across the country say last winter's snowstorms, especially in places like Chicago and Detroit, depleted their supplies.

"At the end of last winter, virtually no one had salt left," said Richard L. Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, an Alexandria, Va., group that represents salt mining companies.

The institute said that 20.3 million tons of road salt were bought in the United States last year, up from 12.1 million in 2006. And Hanneman said salt miners have been working around the clock just to try to amass enough salt to meet contracts already in place.

As a result, some Louisville, Ky.-area governments are finding they either won't have enough for winter, or will have to pay dearly for it.

"Who could have planned for this?" said Jim Leidgen, city clerk and finance director for Jeffersontown, Ky., which may end up paying $130.46 per ton for salt -- triple what it paid last year, because only one company bid on the work.

Middletown, Ky., expects to pay up to $80,000 more for 350 tons of salt this year; it spent $29,000 last year. The city of St. Matthews, Ky., will spend $36,176 on salt, twice what it spent last year.

Across the country, the price of salt is "up tremendously because of supply and demand," said Randy Becker, vice president of sales and marketing for Orbis Online Inc., which oversees reverse-salt auctions for Kentucky's counties. "There are a lot of counties that are going to be without salt if they haven't already got a contract."

The city of Louisville and county governments in Oldham and Bullitt say they expect to have an adequate supply, but Oldham doesn't have enough salt to share with its public schools as it has in the past.

And the schools "don't have an alternative right now" to get salt for access roads and parking lots, Oldham schools spokeswoman Rebecca DeSensi said.

"If we buy salt, we really don't have any place to store it, so right now we're just trying to find an alternative where we could possibly buy salt and send trucks there to pick it up," she said.

Some local leaders said they'll have to make a lesser supply stretch a little further.

"We may have to consider doing intersections, instead of a whole street," said Mayor Byron Chapman of Middletown, where leaders are seeking bids for a company to supply and spread salt.

State transportation officials in Kentucky and Indiana say they'll have enough salt to get through winter, but they're also having to pay more for it.

Joe Wojtonik, a spokesman for Morton Salt, one of three major suppliers in the country, said his company can only keep up with its existing customers. Last year, "winter began early, stayed late, and our inventories were affected system-wide," he said.

Stocked at steep cost

Louisville isn't worried about having enough salt for winter -- the city recently got 5,000 tons of salt and expects 15,000 more from salt supplier Cargill, and already has about 7,000 tons in storage, city spokeswoman Kerri Richardson said.

But the salt will cost $3 more per ton this year, and they're still not sure when it will all be delivered, she said.

"We feel pretty strongly we're going to have enough salt to get us through," Richardson said. And the city's contract with Cargill says Louisville can get more salt if necessary, she said.

Last year, Louisville only spent about $227,000 on salt because the city didn't need the entire 20,000 tons it had reserved and had some salt left over from the previous season, but the city budgeted close to $900,000 for salt this winter because it plans to buy all 20,000 tons of the salt it reserved.

Oldham County, which doesn't have a contract with a salt supplier, has 1,400 tons of salt because it replenished its stock last winter. But there's not enough to sell salt to Oldham County Schools or some local cities as it's done in the past, road superintendent Brian Campbell said.

He said the county may also have to spread cinder, which provides traction but doesn't melt ice as well as salt.

Bullitt County used an online auction through the Kentucky Association of Counties to reserve 2,000 tons of salt this year and isn't expecting any problems with supply, road supervisor Jim Stivers said.

But the county will spend about $21,000 more on salt this year because costs increased by about $14 a ton, he said.

In St. Matthews, the city ordered 375 tons of salt several months ago for $96.47 a ton, up from $48 a ton last year. The salt hasn't been delivered yet.

"That's just some money we can't spend on other things," Mayor Bernie Bowling said. "We'll figure out a way."

Jeffersonville, Ind., has ordered 500 tons from Cargill, but it needs at least 500 more, said street commissioner David Hosea. The salt will cost $76 a ton, up from $55 a ton last year, he said.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet's District 5 office -- which covers Jefferson, Bullitt, Franklin, Henry, Oldham, Shelby and Spencer counties -- has 33,510 tons of salt and is buying 15,000 more tons this year for $51 a ton, up from $44 a ton when it purchased some in February, spokeswoman Andrea Clifford said.

The Indiana Department of Transportation's district in Southern Indiana is getting 50,000 tons of salt this year for $53.30 a ton, compared to the $47.03 per ton it spent on 45,000 tons last year. It also has 5,000 tons in reserve, district spokesman Marvin Jenkins said.

Some local governments and businesses are having trouble even finding salt to buy.

Bramer Bros. Landscaping Inc., which spreads salt every winter for Crestwood and Hurstbourne, has been notified that its supplier, Cargill, doesn't have any for it to buy.

"It's a bad situation for everybody, especially all the smaller companies," said Denny Bramer of the Crestwood business. "We're left scrambling and trying to find" supplies elsewhere.

If he finds some, he said he expects to pay about twice as much as last year, or $110 per ton, based on the cost estimates he's received.