Jump in salt price leaves road board with bitter taste

Fri, Aug 29, 2008    to del.icio.us

It's still August, and already the Ottawa County Road Commission is fretting over what could be exceptionally high winter maintenance costs.

The price the Road Commission will pay to purchase salt this winter is skyrocketing from $34.30 to $51.30 per ton.

It took 14 years for the price to increase by $6.81 a ton, and so Road Commission Director Kent Rubley was surprised to see a $16.90 jump in a single year.

"I guess we anticipated the prices were going to be higher than last year," Rubley said, "but we never anticipated a 50-percent increase."

Once road staff caught wind of the increase, they scrambled to stockpile as much salt as possible at last year's price before the contract expires this summer.

The Road Commission was able to purchase more than 2,000 tons of salt at last year's price, which will be stored at the Holland garage until it's needed.

Road Commission Finance Director Mike Mikita said the move will likely save around $38,000. But that's a drop in the bucket compared with the estimated 30,000 tons the commission could use this winter.

Last year, road crews put down more than 30,227 tons of salt. If the winter requires that much salt again, it could cost the Road Commission $514,000 more than the $1.03 million spent last season.

"We got what we could out of last year's price," Mikita said. "It's going to be an interesting winter, unfortunately."

The Road Commission increased its winter salt allocation from 25,000 to 30,000 tons. With many other county road commissions in the state also increasing their expected supply, Rubley said the demand for salt has gone up in Michigan.

Another factor contributing to the increase is transportation costs, according to Rubley. He said the suppliers likely learned their lesson after having to ship salt to West Michigan from the Detroit area late last winter.

To counteract the price increase, the Ottawa County Road Commission will start the season with a 50-50 ratio of salt and sand. Last winter, road crews were using 60-percent salt when the first snow fell.

There's not much else the Road Commission can do, Rubley said, because alternative snow-melting materials still cost significantly more than the $51.30-per-ton salt — and they can't very well control the amount of snow that blankets the county.

"Whatever it takes to get us through the winter, that's what we're going to do," he said.

Rubley said jumps in winter maintenance costs directly affect the Road Commission's ability to repair deteriorating roads. A countywide road millage will appear on the November ballot in an attempt to help repair Ottawa County roads.

The estimated $4.4 million the millage could bring in would give the Road Commission's increasingly narrow budget some breathing room when material costs — like salt — unexpectedly jump, according to Rubley.

"Every dollar we spend during the winter has nothing to do with roads, but it's Michigan weather and that's what we have to do," he said.

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Ottawa County Road Commission's price for salt

Season $ per ton

2008-09 $51.30

2007-08 $34.20

2006-07 $34.20

2005-06 $29.79

2004-05 $26.87

2003-04 $25.59

2002-03 $25.85

2001-02 $35.56

2000-01 $27.21