North Huntingdon running low on road salt; back order never filled

As another snowstorm hits the region, North Huntingdon is starting to run low on road salt and has been unable to get the 3,400 tons of the ice-melting rocks it ordered last month, township officials said.

There is sufficient road salt for the snowstorm forecast through Friday, public works director Richard Albert told township commissioners.

But if another storm comes, Albert said his department may have to spread partial salt treatments on roadways.

“I’m not comfortable where we’re at” with the existing road salt supply, Albert said.

North Huntingdon is not the only municipality to run into this problem, he added.

The township has tried to get its road salt order filled, but has not succeeded, said Jeff Silka, township manager. He blamed the contractor for not delivering the 3,400 tons of road salt that should have arrived within a week from when it was ordered last month.

“We don’t need (road) salt in June, whenever we have to buy our minimum. We need it now,” Silka said he wrote in a recent email to the Department of General Services.

American Road Salt Co. of Mt. Morris, N.Y., was confused over whether the ban on commercial vehicle travel due to inclement weather this month pertained to their trucks, said Troy Thompson, a spokesman for the state’s Department of General Services. That confusion has since been resolved and trucks are making deliveries, said Thompson, whose department monitors the state’s cooperative purchasing program.

The problem is not a matter of the supply of salt, said Mark Assini, chief administrative official for American Road Salt. The company has 150,000 tons of salt stored at two sites in the region — along the Monongahela River in Rostraver and along the Allegheny River at Freeport.

Municipalities are doubling and tripling their orders, Assini said. Hundreds of trucks are fulfilling road salt orders, he said. Assini acknowledged that deliveries have slowed as the demand for road salt has increased.

“We’re monitoring who gets salt. We’re going to make sure that nobody’s (road salt) shed goes empty,” Assini said.

The township’s contract through the COSTARS purchasing program does not permit North Huntingdon or any other municipality to drive their own trucks to Rostraver to get a load of road salt, Albert said.

It takes about 150 tons of salt to treat the township’s 600 streets, which total 160 miles of road, Silka said. That costs North Huntingdon about $15,000 for each layer of road salt, Silka said.

Depending on the length of the snowstorm, Albert said they may have to make three or four trips over the township’s roads, Albert said.

“Our goal is to make the roads passable,” even if there is some slush remaining on the streets, Albert said.