Winter is far from over, and for some small snow-removal businesses, the season is getting tougher by the day.
Several local operators report a shortage of road salt, particularly during winter with heavy snowfall.
“It means not being able to do the jobs you have as quickly as you want,” said Marcus Carr, owner of Stonewall Landscaping and Snow Removal.
Carr said the difficulty isn’t the work itself, but getting enough salt to keep doing it.
“The suppliers are running out of salt,” Carr said. “They’ll tell you, ‘Hey,’ or send you a text that says, ‘We don’t have salt right now, we’ll text you back later,’ so we have to wait for them to restock for us to be able to work.”
Carr isn’t alone in this sentiment.
“There’s been a national salt shortage we’ve been dealing with for quite some time, and it’s getting a little more difficult to secure product anywhere in the United States or Canada,” said Steve Ingrao, director of operations for Great Deal Products.
It’s a company that buys salt and resells it to smaller buyers.
And Carr said this shortage is forcing up the price of road salt.
“At the beginning of the season, salt was around $100 per ton,” Carr said. “Now we’re looking at north of $300 per ton, so that’s the problem that we’re running into. We have to pass that price on, or we won’t be able to survive out here.”
To assess the problem’s prevalence, Local 4 contacted five county road commissions in Metro Detroit and received responses from three.
Wayne County reported it is not experiencing a salt shortage.
Oakland County also said it is not facing a shortage but is experiencing issues resupplying.
Macomb County, however, confirmed it is experiencing a shortage.
In an average winter, Leo Ciavatta with the Macomb County Department of Roads said the county uses about 50,000 tons of salt.
Ciavatta could not provide an exact figure for this season so far, but estimated they have already used between 30,000 and 40,000 tons.
He also said 20 municipalities typically purchase salt from them.
Because of the shortage, they have had to halt those sales and prioritize salt for their own roads.