Illinois faces salt dilemma

Last year’s salt shortage during the middle of a brutal winter was a bitter pill to swallow, and it could be happening again before the cold months arrive.

Officials in Lake County, Ill., held an emergency meeting this week to figure out how they are going to plow through the upcoming winter. Last year’s storms depleted emergency supplies, and a wet spring reduced salt mining. The end result is a product that carries a price three times higher than in 2007. Salt could go for as high as $145 a ton.

“The reason everyone is worrying about it now is because there is no reserve,” Susan Hopfer, spokesperson for the Department of Central Management Services, the state of Illinois’ office management agency, told the Chicago Tribune. “This first snowstorm is going to hit, and there’s no salt.”

Local governments can either work through the joint purchasing plan and swallow the price hike, or they can negotiate for a regional distributor on their own. Illinois’ Department of Central Management Services has not been able to find a supplier willing to bid on Lake and McHenry counties, and communities in other parts of the state also are without suppliers.

“We’ve never really had a situation like this,” Ken Kennedy, an assistant public works director in Wilmette, Ill., told the Tribune. “This could be a big issue depending on what kind of winter we have.”