Road salt running low in Midwest and New England

It's been a rough winter for parts of the Midwest and New England, and those storms have strained local supplies of road salt, reports The New York Times."With so many municipalities in need of salt, suppliers cannot ship it out quickly enough," Katie Zezima writes. "Public works departments are left waiting for days or weeks to receive their orders."

Those in charge of snow removal and road safety, such as Dennis Lutz, the director of public works for Essex, Vt., (in a Times photo by Karen Pike), have been scrambling to keep their supplies up. The crunch has forced them to buy from smaller suppliers at higher prices. Zezima reports that Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, has been spending more than $66 per ton of salt, up from the $39.29 the county usually pays. The county "is now limiting salt use to hills, curves and intersections," Zezima writes. "The county is putting sand on roads, but some say it is less effective than salt." (Read more)

Some Wisconsin municipalities are using beet juice to thaw roads instead of salt, reports The Associated Press. Mike Hoeft of The Green Bay Press-Gazette reports that neighboring Ashwaubenon has stopped spreading salt on secondary roads and that many rural areas will get sand instead of salt. Around Chicago, suburbs are rationing salt, too, making for long commutes into the city on icy roads, reports The Chicago Tribune. The Tribune also notes that deliveries of more salt are being slowed thanks to ice jams stalling salt barges on the Illinois River.