Salt & Winter Roadway Safety: For Highway Users

Stretched, but not broken. That was the US salt industry stance in re-supplying its snowstorm-beset customers this winter. Some agencies proudly announced they were dealing with record snowfall without fear of adequate salt, but for the past couple weeks, more and more agencies' salt supplies were so depleted that they were lowering service levels, mixing sand into their salt and burning up the phone lines to their salt suppliers. None actually ran out of salt until Thursday when Steubenville, OH, exhausted its available salt in the middle of yet-another storm. Until an emergency "loan" of salt from OH DOT, the city resorted to closing two major streets entirely so they would have salt sufficient to keep their other arteries flowing smoothly. Resupply was scheduled to arrive today.

In times of stress and strain, facing difficult choices, Steubenville acted prudently. The episode underscores the often-neglected but resounding imperative of effective winter maintenance and the essential role of salt as a primary weapon in the war against winter.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 11:09 AM | Permalink

Salt shortage, Winter 2008. Real? How bad? The Salt Institute "tells all" in an online Winter Maintenance podcast.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 05:40 PM | Permalink

We earlier reported that lack of roadway snow and ice removal in China had gridlocked much of the country and imposed $3 billion in economic costs to the nation's economy. The Chinese government announced today that it now calculates the storm damage at $15 billion.

It's been two weeks now since officals admitted they were unprepared. More than 1.3 million soldiers have been mobilized in responding to the snow emergency.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 11:56 AM | Permalink

Although not a single agency reports having been unable to put salt out to keep roads safe, the nation's newspapers are paying more and more attention to shortages of deicing salt. Agencies are telling the media it's a "really bad winter," and their supplies are dwindling. Private contractors like landscape companies report extreme difficulty getting salt; one in Romulus, MI told the Detroit News his prices paid have increased from $59/ton to $75/ton. The Detroit Free Press says snowfall is double the normal winter and includes a salt industry response:

Slow salt replenishment has spelled trouble for road agencies across the nation's hard-hit northern states, said Richard Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a nonprofit trade group in Alexandria, Va.

"We have plenty of salt," he said. "It's a question of putting it in the right place at the right time."

Localized shortages can stem from cities, particularly smaller ones, having limited storage space for road salt, and suppliers choosing where to send salt based on a community's need or the size and importance of a road department's highway network.

A spokesman for Chicago-based Morton Salt said ice on the Detroit River slowed the shipping of salt. Locally, the Detroit Salt Co. said it is delivering salt as fast as it can.

In western Michigan, the local TV station reported much the same:

"In a normal winter we'd be okay. If winter continues another two to three weeks, we'll be a little more concerned," said Jerry Byrne of the Kent County Road Commission.

So the road commission is mixing salt with sand to make the best use of resources, something Rivers Edge is doing, too. They are also contacting customers to make them aware that the cuts will affect them soon.

Everybody involved is hoping Old Man Winter quiets down so the salt coming into West Michigan is enough to get them through.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 11:03 AM | Permalink

Sunday's New York Times warns that "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." Reporter Katie Zezima included our reaction:

“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.”

Public works agencies report difficulty in securing re-supply. In response, Zezima says:

Mark Klein, a spokesman for Cargill, which supplies salt to Vermont, said deliveries, which come via train or truck, were hampered by the bad weather. Some towns in the Midwest said they had been told that barges bringing salt to their area were unable to cross the Great Lakes because of ice.

“They’re running down on their stocks early on, and we continue to build supply in,” Mr. Klein said. “It would be nice to get a break in the storms and let the stocks build back up again. In any winter we would be replenishing throughout the winter. But because this winter is more inclement, it’s causing the earlier drawdown of supplies, which no one really forecast.”

In some cases it is not the large storms that are sapping resources, but the many small ones that just coat the road, making them too slick for drivers.

“I think a good 16 to 18 inches is a lot easier to manage than the two-, three-, four-inch storms that come in every 24 hours,” said Bruce Berry, the public works director in Amherst, N.H.

We can all agree: there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 12:15 AM | Permalink