Polar vortex drives salt prices up for winter season

Home News Polar vortex drives salt prices up for winter season

Last winter’s “polar vortex” drove this season’s salt prices up due to the skyrocketing demand. Effects have been felt throughout Michigan, and the city and college of Hillsdale are no exception.
Last year, the college bought 50 tons of salt for $3,100. This fall, the price jumped to almost $7,600 for the same amount.
Towards the end of last season, Director of Purchasing at the Fowler Maintenance Building Jim Sarles called 10-12 companies looking for more salt after the college ran out. Salt companies were charging $12,000 for 50 tons, Superintendent of Grounds Mike Wiseley said.
“We didn’t end up ordering at that point,” Wiseley said of last year. “We used the rest of our bagged salt. It’s a pain to open each bag, but we finished the order.”
Because of the salt shortage, the maintenance crew had to mix locally-bought sand in with the salt to make it last. For the 16 years prior, Wiseley said, the college used an average of 35 tons, leaving a substantial surplus in the storage barn.
With this season’s mild winter already well underway, Wiseley said he feels confident the college has plenty to last until spring, and does not need to order any more. Sarles confirmed that the college is a little more than halfway through this year’s allotment.
The college purchases its salt from Hersch’s Inc. in Oak Park, Michigan. The additional eight tons of bagged salt are bought locally from Nichols. Hillsdale College is only responsible for salting its own property because city, state, and county governments are responsible for the roads.
The tons of bulk salt are loaded into the college’s salt truck, and other trucks plow the parking lots, while Steiners salt or brush away snow from the sidewalks. The maintenance crew of six men will start work at 4 a.m. after a night’s snowfall in order to have everything cleaned up by 8 a.m., pending the snowfall ends by morning.
The city also felt its purse strings tightened in buying salt for the winter; however, municipalities go through a slightly different process in ordering salt. They place their order with MiDEAL in March of each year. MiDEAL allows local governments to use state government contracts to purchase services and goods, like salt.
Keith Richard, the city’s director of public services, said the city usually orders 1,000 tons, plus a few hundred tons of back-up in a secondary shipment. Last year’s price was $39 per ton. This year, the city paid $56.22 per ton, totaling $56,220 from the Detroit Salt Company.
“So far this year we have used 150 tons of salt, approximately, and approximately 50 tons of sand-salt mix,” Richard reported to the Collegian on Jan. 16. The city has most likely used more since that date. “Sand-salt mix is primarily used to add some aggregate or grip material so that once the salt starts to work and the de-icing process works, we are left with a little bit of residual. When it starts to ice over again, it gives tires a grip and helps people walk.”
The city is maxed out in terms of space at their storage barn this winter, thanks to reserves from last season. However, the city is still contractually obligated to order the amount of salt they ordered on an as-needed basis in 40-ton allotments, Richard said.
In terms of budget constraints, Richard said his department heard rumblings that the salt prices were going to increase this year, and accounted for it in the city budget with a 1.1 percent increase in the major street funds winter maintenance budget. The local street funds winter maintenance budget decreased by 0.6 percent. The 45 percent price increase still took a hit on the supplies budget, Richard said, but state trunkline funds helped offset that.
“The one drawback is that the bidding process is performed and finalized relative to the state budget, which operates on a different time frame than most local units of government. That is, the state fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 each year, while most local units of government operate on a fiscal year of July 1 to June 30. Thus, we do not get the results of the bid until August, which is about three months after our budget has been finalized,” Richard said in an email.
The college’s rising salt prices came out of the maintenance budget, Wiseley said.
“We usually try to stay under budget, so we will be ok,” Wiseley said. “The vendors always say that cities and municipalities get priority on salt because they order a lot more.”