AUSTINTOWN - Low supplies of road salt may mean treacherous roads this winter, locally and across the nation.
"People may not get the service they did last year," Austintown administrator Michael Dockry said Monday.
The price for road salt the township was quoted through the county purchasing program doubled, from $35 per ton to $71 per ton, Dockry said. The other purchasing cooperative the township participates in did not receive a single bid, he said.
"The story is that we all used too much last year," he said.
He blamed the shortage on heavy snowfall throughout the latter part of the winter plowing season.
The problem is being repeated across the area and nation. The shortage could force many cities to salt fewer roads, increasing the risk of accidents, officials said. Other communities are abandoning road salt for less expensive but also less effective sand or sand-salt blends.
Dockry said the township has two options to conserve salt and save money: Blend the salt with gravel slag, which will still give drivers some traction on ice-covered roads; and scale back on the salt application.
"We may have to follow the Mahoning County model and only use salt on bends and curves and intersections," he said.
In Howland, prices increased from $37 per ton to $68 per ton; the 2,500-ton order the township normally purchases would cost $170,000.
"Howland has traditionally only used pure salt," administrator Darlene St. George said. "But with these prices, we're going to have to go to a mix."
Because of the hilly topography of the township, it will be difficult to scale back on application, she said.
"We don't want to do anything that puts the residents and those driving through the township at risk," she said.
The United States used a near-record 20.3 million tons of road salt last year, largely because areas from the Northeast to the Midwest had heavier-than-average snowfall. Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, for instance, got four to six times their typical amounts. Vermont, New Hampshire and other areas set records. The heavy snowfall translated to depleted salt bins.
This year, many states requested bids early, said Dick Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a trade group, and salt orders grew significantly. Five states increased their orders by a total of 2 million tons over last year.
Suppliers quickly realized that at that pace, they would not have enough salt to bid on other contracts, he said.
The rising cost of gasoline and diesel compounded the situation, Hanneman said. Road salt - which, unlike table salt, is sold in large crystals - is transported by barge and truck from mines in Kansas, Louisiana and Texas. Some is shipped from as far away as Chile in South America.
State agencies that maintain interstate highways are supplied first, leaving smaller communities the hardest hit by the shortage, Hanneman said.
Other communities expect to use more sand or to adopt a cheaper sand-salt mixture. Neshannock Township in Lawrence County, Pa., plans to use a special pretreated salt mixture that isn't as expensive as regular road salt. The township's price for salt has nearly quadrupled, from $36.90 a ton last year to $145 for this coming winter.
When the winter storms hit, Dockry said drivers should keep road conditions in mind.
"We'll all just have to give a little more time to get there," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.