WASHINGTON TWP., Mich. (WXYZ) — Sam Marino, owner of Marino's Landscaping in Washington Township, said his salt bin is nearly empty when it should be full this time of year. The 20-year snow removal veteran said this winter has been anything but typical.
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"That bin's been moving very excessively. Normally, it doesn't move as rapid as it has been," Marino said.
Marino said his business typically salts 25 to 30 times per season, but in December alone, they've already completed 18 saltings at one retail shopping center.
The increased winter weather has driven salt prices from $125 per ton to $182 per ton – a significant jump that's forcing businesses to make tough decisions.
"Some customers obviously understand that, other people don't, they're not willing to pay for it, and it creates a problem," Marino said.
For a large truck that holds about 18 tons of salt, that price increase translates to more than $1,000 additional cost per truckload. Small businesses like Marino's are now carefully monitoring their salt usage.
"It's impacting everybody, not just us," Marino said.
The high demand and rising costs are also affecting suppliers. Randy Gauthier with Metropolitan Materials said a shortage is very possible because most salt at the local mine is already allocated.
"Your government, your cities, they're going to get first dibs. They have a large amount of salt down at the mine right now that's paid for that they get first," Gauthier said.
To keep customers supplied, Gauthier said he's had to source salt from Ohio at triple the cost.
"Out of Ohio and we paid triple the cost to bring it into our yard to make sure that our customers stay taken care of," Gauthier said.
Gauthier warned the situation could worsen and advised customers to use salt wisely.
"People are going to have to understand that they need to light salt, not oversalt, right now. If they can plow and scrape, they might want to do that more to try to keep the shortage from going even worse because what happens is when people oversalt, it really affects the whole salt game," Gauthier said.
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