Friday, December 26, 2014
Photo
Ginnetti
By ROBERT CONNELLY
YOUNGSTOWN
A drier start to the winter season this year has helped area communities preserve road-treatment supplies.
Martin Mullen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Cleveland, provided snowfall totals for this year versus 2013 from the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport. The airport recorded 12.3 inches of snow for November and December this year compared with 28.5 inches a year ago.
“We’re about 16 inches below what we had last year,” Mullen said. “We had a lot of snow in November.”
The November numbers are comparable — 14.4 inches in 2013, 11.6 inches in 2014 —but it’s the December numbers that have made the difference for road treatment supplies locally. The airport has recorded 0.7 inch of snow this month versus 14.4 inches this time last year.
The mildness of the season, specifically the below-normal precipitation, “definitely looks like it could continue” through the winter, Mullen said.
During the summer, area communities were facing prices between $146 and $148 per ton for rock salt in Mahoning County. That was lowered to $105.25, what most communities purchased at if they bought road salt for this winter. The Ohio Department of Transportation runs a cooperative for local communities to opt into to obtain a lower price because of buying in bulk. ODOT selected Indiana-based Midwest Salt Co. and bought 171,600 tons at $105.25 per ton, ODOT’s Steve Faulkner said this fall.
“We have certainly used less salt this winter, 94,562 tons, than at the same point last winter, 256,974 tons, statewide,” said Melissa Ayers, an official with ODOT, this week.
But a mild start to the winter has helped communities preserve their supplies that they were worried about headed into this winter.
Mahoning County elected not to order more salt in the the fall and instead relied on the salt it purchased at the summer fill price of $42 a ton. Instead, the county turned to the mixtures instead of ordering more rock salt.
“We’re still full. Fully equipped and ready if we get some snow,” said Patrick T. Ginnetti, Mahoning County engineer. “The things that worry me are the freezing rains. It’s always hard to treat that, and it’s hard to detect until you start seeing people sliding around.”
Mahoning County has its three rock-salt storage facilities full — 3,500 tons among the facilities — on top of 12,000 gallons of BEET HEET, at a rate of $1.44 a gallon, and about 500 tons of brine-treated slag.
BEET HEET is an ice-control accelerator made from sugar beets and molasses. Mahoning County Commissioners approved the purchase of up to $100,000 for both brine-treated slag and BEET HEET in the fall. The county got the brine-treated slag from Lowellville-based Gennaro Pavers Inc. at a rate of $13.50 per ton if the county picked it up, and $19.50 a ton if delivered.
“What we’re doing is to stretch our salt supply, we’re cutting that and mixing with our slag and adding BEET HEET,” Ginnetti said.
He specified the county’s mixture is three parts slag to one part rock salt with five gallons of BEET HEET per ton of that mixture.
“Fortunately, it’s been light. Hopefully [the weather] stays that way,” Ginnetti remarked.
Boardman Township has close to 6,000 tons of salt for the winter, township administrator Jason Loree said, with another 500 tons on reserve, meaning the township isn’t obligated to pay for it.
Boardman ordered 5,000 tons at the summer price of about $42 a ton and received its last shipment of about 1,000 tons a few weeks ago. “We are making mixings right from the start, and this is something we’re going to continue into the future,” Loree said of the township’s mix of treated grindings and rock salt.
Canfield city manager Joe Warino said the city started the season with 700 tons and that city crews have only been out twice so far. “Probably less than 200 tons that we’ve used,” so far, Warino said. “We still have 500 tons to be delivered to us, and I made the appeal to ODOT to deliver to us last because we would have to store outside.”
Austintown received 300 tons a few weeks ago from 17 truckloads. “That was all we could take at the time,” said Mike Dockry, Austintown township administrator. The township salt-storage shed can hold only that much.
TRUMBULL COUNTY
Trumbull County Engineer Randy Smith said the salt dome on North River Road in Warren is full at about 9,000 tons of salt. The department can obtain another 4,000 tons at the $105.25 price it paid for the 3,850 tons it got recently.
The department has invested in alternate methods of ice and snow control, such as two 6,000-gallon tanks to be used to disperse brine and 4,800 gallons of beet juice that are on hand.
The department experimented on a limited basis with a brine pretreatment but otherwise hasn’t had enough snow and ice to gauge how well the alternative treatments will work, Smith said.
Contributing: Staff writers Peter H. Milliken and Ed Runyan contributed to this report.