Salt Prices Skyrocketing

With sum­mer pretty much behind us already, and Labor Day now in the rear view mir­ror, thoughts are, whether we want them to or not, turn­ing to the colder months ahead.

Some com­mu­ni­ties in our area are now find­ing out that the cost of road salt has sky­rock­eted.

For instance, Ful­ton County has, accord­ing to the Cres­cent News, just secured a con­tract to buy salt for the upcom­ing win­ter at a price of $95.50 per ton. That’s 53 per­cent more than what it cost last win­ter!

County offi­cials say it’s the biggest increase they’ve seen since 1997. But Ful­ton County offi­cials say they are for­tu­nate to even get it at that, as some coun­ties are hav­ing dif­fi­culty even find­ing a salt sup­plier that will pro­vide a quote.

Henry County received a bid of $136.17 per ton — more than four times what the county paid last year.

Dur­ing a typ­i­cal win­ter, ODOT will use about 630,000 tons of salt. Last year, because of the above aver­age snow­fall, and below aver­age tem­per­a­tures we expe­ri­enced, more than 1.5 mil­lion tons of salt was needed.