“This year’s looking much better so far,” said Todd Matheson, a state maintenance engineer with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, though prices nationwide have risen about 20% from last winter.
Wisconsin uses just over 500,000 tons of road salt a year, on average. But recent winters have been severe and the state has more than 560,000 tons contracted for this year with some 141,000 tons extra in reserve for the roughly 12,000 miles of road the Transportation Department must keep clear.
“Overall last winter’s weather was early, exceptionally heavy and prolonged,” said Tara Hart, spokeswoman for Compass Minerals International Inc., based in Overland Park, Kan., and one of the largest suppliers of road salt in North America. “What it means is that we and our customers started with essentially zero inventory this season.”
Compass’s mines and plants have been working nonstop, which is unusual this time of year, Ms. Hart said, churning out the roughly 10.5 million tons of salt the company can produce annually. The price increase this year hasn’t cut back on contracts because road de-icing isn’t something municipalities can afford to cut back on. “The demand does not go away. Because everyone needs salt,” she said.
