Companies scrambling for road salt amid major salt shortage

Windsor residents are being limited with how much salt they can buy at the store amid a provincial road salt shortage. CTV Windsor’s Bob Bellacicco checks in.

The Home Hardware in West Windsor is limiting the number of bags of salt customers can buy amid a major salt shortage.

“We are limiting it to five per customer per house per day,” said manager Christine MacDonald.

“We got 33 skids in yesterday and I’m down to 12 already today. It’s 56 bags on a skid. We did give some to companies around the city.”

But it’s hardly enough to keep up. Companies are working hard to find salt not cultivated from their own backyard at Windsor Salt.

“I just moved here. I know there’s a salt mine so I’m like how are we out of salt? How is there a salt shortage?” said Angelina Donatucci-Urlacher, an employee of Lion Property Services.

The struggle to find salt partly stems from a harsh winter across Ontario affecting the world’s largest salt mine in Goderich.

According to a county official, Windsor Salt is rationing the amount of salt local municipalities can buy and local contractors have no access.

“In a normal season we salt about 24-25 times. We’re already at 25 times and we have the worst month ahead of us,” said John Tamasovics, owner of CGM Landscape.

The Town of Kingsville said they are limited by the number of truck loads they can collect every week from Windsor Salt which has created operational challenges, especially with the recent snow storms.

“As a precaution, we’ve started using a higher ratio of sand mixed with our salt to treat area roadways,” said Shaun Martinho, Director of Public Operations.

“We’ve been in close contact with neighbouring municipalities and Essex County Highways to back one another up if we run short.”

Companies we spoke with Thursday are dealing with businesses sourcing salt from the Toronto area, Quebec, and even as far as Egypt.

The demand has resulted in a price spike.

“From November prices being $132 a tonne, we’re up to $290 so the overall price is about 220% from where it was originally. We’re set contracts and we have to eat it,” Tamasovics told CTV News.

The shortage is a sensitive subject with bigger companies who declined to speak to CTV News on the record for fear customers will panic.

Entrepreneurs like Steve Crawford, who commissions a contracted snow removal company, are concerned about how the shortage of salt could affect traffic around their places of business.

“Slip and liability not only for my employees which are number one but any customers coming in,” Crawford said.

Many companies are feeling the pinch of the shortage, the effects of a long harsh winter and the demands of their schedule.

“I was up for 42 hours straight, worked 25 of those hours.” said Donatucci-Urlacher.

“Just a little bit of chaos but it’s a good chaos, right?”

With more snow in the forecast before the busiest month of the winter in February, Tamasovics and others are adjusting to the climate and finding ways to make things work.

“We’ll make it through,” Tamasovics said.

“It’s just, it’s going to be a struggle to try to keep things efficient and be proactive with our salt usage.”