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Salt price crisis looms, Mahoning commissioners say
YOUNGSTOWN
To conserve scarce and costly road salt as winter approaches, the Mahoning County commissioners Thursday approved the purchase of up to $100,000 each worth of slag and of a new, organic ice-control accelerator.
The brine-treated slag will come from Gennaro Pavers Inc. of Lowellville, at a price of $13.50 per ton if the county picks it up and $19.50 if it is delivered to the county by the supplier.
The patented ice-control accelerator, known as BEET HEET, is a liquid de-icer made from sugar beets and molasses.
BEET HEET is applied to the salt and slag mix as it leaves the spinners at the back of the salt trucks.
It is being obtained at $1.44 per gallon delivered from its sole supplier, K-Tech Specialty Coatings Inc. of Ashley, Ind.
The Indiana company began developing that product in 2009, and some 175 Midwest municipalities now use it.
“The salt issue is a big issue right now. Local jurisdictions can’t afford it,” said county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino.
The counties’ ability to afford salt would be improved if $100,000 for each of Ohio’s 88 counties could be released from the state’s $3.5 billion rainy-day fund for salt purchases, Sciortino said.
“We could possibly have an emergency situation,” he added.
“The rainy-day fund should be for the people that paid into it, and that’s us,” said Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti. “I just want the roads clear and drivable and safe,”
Road salt has increased 500 percent in price over the past year, and the county uses a half-salt, half-slag mix with BEET HEET added, noted Commissioner Anthony Traficanti.
High spending for salt could mean a shortage of money for pothole patching and road paving, he added.
The harsh winter of 2013-14 depleted salt reserves, thereby raising the price under the economic law of supply and demand, Commissioner David Ditzler said, quoting Morton Salt officials.
Prices for salt have escalated since local communities were required to place their orders a year in advance, Ditzler noted.
“Usually, you commit to what you used the previous year,’’ he explained.
James Fortunato, county purchasing director, said the harsh winter increased demand for salt in the southern states.
The commissioners approved a $13,800 agreement with S.E.T. Inc. of Lowellville for emergency repairs to an 18-inch sanitary sewer buried more than 16 feet below ground level on Massachusetts Avenue in Boardman, just east of Interstate 680.
They also approved a resolution supporting a $50,000 grant from county sewer user fees to the Ohio State University Extension Office for education of farmers in proper fertilizer application to reduce phosphorus in rainwater runoff from farmland.
The phosphorus promotes algae growth that threatens drinking-water supplies.
This summer, some 400,000 Toledo area residents couldn’t drink their tap water for two days because of algae growth in Lake Erie, which is their water source.