MOUNT VERNON — For anyone who believes in “The Old Farmer’s Almanac,” it’s going to be a miserable winter, especially in January and February. The redoubtable publication has had a hit-or-miss history of weather prediction. Nonetheless, Knox County as a whole, with its stockpiles of road salt, is prepared to do its best to keep roads clear and traffic moving this winter.
While there have been some delays in salt delivery this fall, there does not seem to be a big shortage.
Mount Vernon beat the rush and the anticipated rise in the price of road salt this year.
“I filled my barn up [with salt] at the end of last winter; in March, because I knew the price was going to go up. And it did,” said Dave Carpenter, superintendent of the Mount Vernon Streets Department. “Call it an educated guess. It went from $38.18, I believe, to $54.54 a ton. My barn is full now and I anticipate having enough for the first 45 to 50 percent of the winter.”
Carpenter said he doesn’t expect to run any mix this year; that is, salt mixed with sand or other gritty substance to extend salt supplies and provide some extra traction.
“I expect to run pure salt this winter,” he said. “It depends on what kind of winter we have. If I’m forced to mix sand or No. A gravel with it, I will. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep the roads in passable condition.”
Gambier is also prepared with its salt supplies.
“We’re doing well,” said Gambier Village Administrator Suzanne Hopkins. “We will probably do about the same as last year. We do have some ordered, but it won’t be here until the first week of December. And, yes, there was a price increase this year.”
Hopkins said she expects to use a mix for most of the winter season.
“We will probably do about a 50/50 mix as much as possible this year,” she said. “The salt mines are limited because of last year. When I called to reserve a supply, they weren’t letting anybody reserve huge amounts because their reserve just wasn’t there this year. We’re just going to do our best.”
Most of the townships are in good shape as well as far as supplies are concerned.
“We’re in pretty good shape, I think,” said Clinton Township Trustee Eugene Phillips. “We’re going to do some mixing rather than use just salt this year because I don’t know whether we can get as much as we need. We’re a little behind on [delivery] of our last order. We’re having to wait, but that’s all right. We have a barn full right now and we’ve got a big pile of sand to mix with it. I think we get along, but you never know what the weather’s going to be.”
The county is about as ready as it can be for the winter according to Larry Bechtel, assistant engineer for Knox County.
“We have a barn for 50/50 mix and a barn for salt,” he said. “Both of those are full. We normally try to fill them up in the spring in anticipation of prices increasing. We have enough for a couple of storms, but we have to order once we start using it. We have a contract with Cargill, but we haven’t ordered any yet, so we don’t know what will be available. That’s what we have at the present time.”
Bechtel said it would be hard to tell at this point how much mix the county might use this winter. The unpredictability of the kind of weather the county will get this winter makes any kind of prediction almost impossible.
“We normally go through several tons [of mix],” he said. “We will probably cut back on plain salt. We might add more grit to the salt instead of using so much salt because of the price of it. I know ODOT is cutting back about a third on their salt use, and we might try to do the same thing.”
It just all depends.
