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Supply shortage: Yorkville ‘scrambles’ to secure contract for winter road salt · Kendall County News - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Supply shortage, Yorkville scrambles to secure contract for winter road salt.
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  Speaker 1: Written by Joey Weslow. This article is being read by
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  Speaker 1: an automated voice brought to you by Everlett. When you
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  Speaker 1: think of snowy winters in Yorkville, you don't often think
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  Speaker 1: of the balmy sugarcane fields of coastal Louisiana. The closing
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  Speaker 1: of the Avery Island salt mined by Cargill in twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four removed two million tons of salt from markets
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  Speaker 1: for towns to de ice their roads. After Yorkville was
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  Speaker 1: one of two hundred and sixty cities that had their
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  Speaker 1: salt supplier say it could not fill orders this year,
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  Speaker 1: the news sent everybody scrambling to try to find salt.
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  Speaker 1: Public Works director Eric Duce said the city previously procured
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  Speaker 1: salt through the State of Illinois Central Management Services Office.
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  Speaker 1: When its bid came up empty, Yorkville had to seek
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  Speaker 1: an individualized solution. The city put out seven bids to
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  Speaker 1: fill its salt demand. In a bad winter, the city
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  Speaker 1: uses around two thousand, five hundred tons of salt. Yorkville
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  Speaker 1: currently has only seven hundred tons on hand. Of those
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  Speaker 1: seven bids, only two companies responded. The price tags far
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  Speaker 1: exceed previous years. In my twenty six years of bidding salt,
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  Speaker 1: this has not happened, Deu said in city documents. Deue
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  Speaker 1: said the effects of the salt mine's closing were compounded
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  Speaker 1: by above average snowfall in winters for much of the country,
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  Speaker 1: leading to a national salt shortage. The lowest bid of
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  Speaker 1: a two hundred and fifty six thousand, two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: forty three dollars contract by Midwest Salt of West Chicago,
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  Speaker 1: was approved by the city Council during its August eleventh meeting.
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  Speaker 1: Midwest Salt also provides the city salt for its water
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  Speaker 1: treatment plants. The contract secures Yorkville two three hundred tons
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  Speaker 1: of salt for the year, delivered by October first. The
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  Speaker 1: contract quotes salt at one hundred and eleven dollars and
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  Speaker 1: five forty one cents per ton. This is far higher
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  Speaker 1: than last year's seventy two dollars per ton from last
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  Speaker 1: year's supplier to the city, Compass Minerals of Kansas. Due
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  Speaker 1: said he reached out to Compass Minerals this year, and
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  Speaker 1: the company said it was booked up already with no
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  Speaker 1: remaining salt. We can fill our bins, have enough for winter,
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  Speaker 1: and move on to next year and hope for better
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  Speaker 1: Due said during the meeting. We are going to rely
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  Speaker 1: more on brine and some calcium fluoride this year, just
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  Speaker 1: to make sure there's enough. The three thousand tons of
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  Speaker 1: salt is less than the three thousand, five hundred tons
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  Speaker 1: the city initially had hoped. Due said almost all of
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  Speaker 1: the towns across Kendall County were in a similar predicament.
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  Speaker 1: After not receiving initial bids for salt. Earlier this month,
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  Speaker 1: the Kendall County Board declared an emergency to approve three
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars for bulk rock salt supplies.
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  Speaker 1: Like Yorkville's new bid, the contract the county secured is
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  Speaker 1: much higher per ton than last year's