Hundreds Of Illinois Towns Are Scrambling To Find Road Salt Before Winter

Hopefully snow will hold off for a while in the Midwest.

You may not think about it, but there's a lot of state-level work that goes into supplying towns with enough road salt for the winter. And that's what's about to cause problems for some towns in Illinois.

Over 250 towns, cities, townships and villages in Illinois tried to get road salt through a state purchasing program this summer but a lot of them didn't get a contract to supply road salt.

Cynthia Johnson, Deputy Director for Communication and Information, said that a major road salt supplier (namely Cargill) "chose not to participate in the bidding process as local governments prepared for winter".

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St. Charles, which is in DuPage County with a population of over 30,000, did not get a contract for road salt this winter. They voted to try to get the little bit of road salt left at a 53% increase from last year.

Yorkville also bumped up the budget to get their hands on road salt too, paying 256,243 from Midwest Salt (which is $111.41 per ton). McHenry was able to get a couple of bids on their road salt: one from Midwest Salt for $120 a ton, and one from Morton Salt at $163 per ton. To put it in perspective: in previous years, their cost was $80 per ton.

Central Management Services is helping 94 municipalities find and procure road salt. The Kendall County Board declared an emergency in August to get a $350,000 contract bid for road salt.

McHenry Public Works Director Russ Adams isn't sure if it's a supply chain or transportation issue that's causing the road salt issue in Illinois.