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Thursday, February 13, 2003

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Small but frequent snowfalls which have kept highway crews scurrying almost every day for six weeks have made road salt a hot commodity in southwestern Pennsylvania.

	A salt pile, owned by M.M. Schaefer-Clairton Slag Inc along Route 837 near West Elizabeth, is only a fraction of its normal size. (Robert J. Pavuchak, Post-Gazette) Related story: PennDOT takes each winter with grains of salt -- lots of them

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has ordered an extra 6,350 tons for state-owned roads in Allegheny County, at $62.69 a ton, including delivery -- up from $34.58 a ton earlier this winter.

"It's a supply-and-demand situation," said Andy Kost, maintenance engineer for PennDOT District 11, which takes care of the county. "It's like gasoline. A lot is available, but the price keeps going up, up, up."

Statewide, the winter of 2002-03 is on track not only to break the budget but also to set PennDOT records.

PennDOT Deputy Secretary Gary Hoffman said the department's bill for snow removal stood at $169 million a week ago. That is $9 million over budget and only $17 million below the record, set in the winter of 1995-96, when snow reached depths of 3 feet in parts of the state.

If the troublesome weather persists, he said, PennDOT will drop a total of some 1.2 million tons of salt on state-owned roads. That would be 100,000 tons more than the department has ever used in a year.

"We haven't had marquee blizzards or more snow accumulation than a normal winter," Hoffman said. "The problem is we're getting four or five shots of snow a week and putting 500 to 1,000 tons down in every county every time it happens."

The National Weather Service reported yesterday that snowfall for the season totaled 36.8 inches in Pittsburgh.

PennDOT's salt supplies, monitored daily in Harrisburg through a special computer-based program, are adequate in 55 of the state's 67 counties.

But the department has put out emergency purchase contracts for the other 12 counties, Beaver, Washington, Westmoreland, Lawrence, Jefferson and Clarion in this region.

PennDOT does not yet consider Allegheny County to be a problem: 11,600 tons were on hand yesterday and a new order of 6,350 tons is expected to be delivered within the next couple of weeks.

Nonetheless, Kost said he has ordered highway workers to "be conservative" when spreading salt, which is being mixed with cinders to stretch supplies.

To help cash- and salt-strapped communities, PennDOT will lend small amounts of salt from locations where supplies are sufficient, but municipalities will have to replace it ton for ton later.

"We'll help out where we can and where it makes sense, without cutting ourselves short," Hoffman said.

If a municipality has no salt for emergency routes, such as roads leading to a hospital, officials should get in touch with the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency, he added.

Municipalities with agreements to clear state-owned roads within their jurisdictions can expect a bonus based on how much PennDOT exceeds its $160 million budget for "winter services." For example, if PennDOT spends $192 million, or 20 percent more than was budgeted when all expenses are calculated, a municipality with a $10,000 agreement will get an extra $2,000.

PennDOT's biggest municipal agreement is with Pittsburgh. The city's contract calls for it to be paid $372,000 for snow removal on all state-owned roads and bridges within city limits except the interstate highways, which PennDOT's road crews handle.

The city has its own problems with salt supplies and deliveries.

By the end of the day yesterday, Public Works Director Guy Costa estimated the city's salt inventories were down to 6,000 tons total, or just enough for six more days of snow. So far, the city has gone through 50,000 tons this winter season.

Consequently, Costa has ordered workers to mix salt with cinders, as PennDOT is doing, to extend snow removal resources and to ration the mixture by turning off salt spreaders where streets are level.

The city has another 7,500 tons on order from its supplier, Cargill Salt Inc., but Cargill told Costa that the order coming from Louisiana is aboard barges that could take another two weeks to navigate up the Ohio and Monongahela rivers to a local depot.

M.M. Schaefer-Clairton Slag Inc., which handles salt storage and orders for both North American Salt Co. and Cargill, said three weeks ago that it had 200,000 tons stockpiled along the Mon River in West Elizabeth and Jefferson Hills.

Managers at Schaefer-Clairton Slag, where the city gets its salt, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Joe Grata can be reached at jgrata@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1985.