SALT CRISIS PUTS CITY IN A PINCH

This winter is, when reduced to its essence, a struggle between two basic substances, two elements of nature that cannot be ignored: salt and snow.

Salt is our friend. Snow is not.

Anyone who tried to drive to work, school or the grocery Wednesday knows that. Everywhere, the roads were slippery, mushy, treacherous.

But across the city and suburbs as the salt supplies dwindled Wednesday, officials in many communities, including Chicago, were warning that a full-fledged shortage was upon us.

With constituents grumbling about ice on their streets and forcing aldermen to squawk, the city administration defended how it managed to start the winter with a record amount of road salt but now is having to spend millions of dollars to purchase more.

The mountain of salt is nearly depleted, officials said, forcing aldermen to approve an emergency purchase of 70,000 tons of salt for more than $3 million.

Many storage sheds are nearly empty, and highway departments, including the state Department of Transportation, are stretching the supplies they have by mixing them with sand, cinders or gravel.

But salt is coming-by train, barge or truck-industry officials and politicians reassured a salt-starved public.

The question, however, is whether those supplies will arrive in time and in large enough quantity to cope with another winter blast. The answer: a cautiously optimistic yes.

Gov. Jim Edgar ordered state purchasing officials to use their clout to get quicker deliveries of salt, and an emergency shipment of 200,000 tons is expected this week in 159 municipalities, most of them in the metropolitan area.

Officials said they will make sure it is delivered to the areas that need it most, including Aurora, Downers Grove, Elgin, Hinsdale, Waukegan, and Du Page and Lake Counties.

The region, including Chicago, should get another shot of salt from a train that is on its way from Kansas.

It will not be too soon for Mayor Richard Daley, who found himself defending the city’s management of what was a record amount of stockpiled salt at the beginning of the winter. Now, officials said, the mountain of salt is nearly depleted, forcing alderman to approve an emergency purchase of 70,000 tons for $3 million.

“We’re in good shape, there’s no panic out there,” Daley said, adding that Chicago is in better shape than many neighboring municipalities.

“The people want their salt,” he said. “You can’t get around it. They want salt.”

Snow has always been a sensitive political issue in Chicago ever since Mayor Michael Bilandic’s administration was hit with a 1979 storm that was mismanaged and helped to usher in Jane Byrne.

Most of the salt-60,000 new tons-will cost $20 per ton, or $1.2 million. The trucking fees will add almost $25 a ton, or $1.5 million. The remaining 10,000 emergency tons are being shipped in by rail at a cost of almost $42 a ton, or $420,000, according to the Department of Streets and Sanitation.

The more than $3 million in emergency salt purchases is on top of $5.4 million spent on the more than 300,000 tons that Streets and Santitation Commissioner Eileen Carey started with or the overtime she is paying laborers to guard the meager hoard.

In January, the nation’s salt mines shipped more than 6 million tons of salt, said Richard Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, an industry association in Alexandria, Va. That is more than half the 10 million to 11 million tons that are typically shipped during a winter.

And the work continues.

“This is a record year,” Hanneman said.

That is reflected in prices, which have soared from $24 to as much as $50 a ton.

The nationwide run on rock salt is being caused by back-to-back ice and snowstorms in the Midwest and East Coast, said industry spokesmen. The record-breaking demand, along with normal delivery delays, have suppliers struggling to get rock salt to customers before the next storm hits.

Forecasters said the next snowstorm probably will arrive Friday night or Saturday with accumulations of up to 2 inches.

Lake County has a piddling 300 to 400 tons of salt and has taken to drastic rationing, using nine parts of sand to one part salt.

“That’s just enough to keep the sand from freezing,” said Al Giertych, director of maintenance. But if the county gets another severe ice storm, he warned, “the salt would be gone in one four-hour shift.”

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“Cook County is as low as anyone else,” said spokesman John Traverso, who added that the county has not started rationing yet is keeping a close eye on things.

Inverness officials are looking forward to supplies from the Kansas salt train.

Right now, the village has enough salt for a “shot and a half,” said administrator Bill Grams. “We usually use about 60 tons for one sweep (of the town), and we now have maybe 80 tons on hand.” Highway officials there are extending their supplies with calcium chloride, Grams said.

In Lombard, officials plan to spread sand and cinders when they run out of salt.

“Cinders are a benefit,” said Karl Fry, the Du Page County superintendent of roads. “When it is real cold, like 5 to 10 degress above zero, the salt doesn’t work well on ice.”

In Will County, officials also are anxiously waiting for their ship to come in, the one loaded with salt.

“I’ve got 800 tons coming,” said Jack Saunders, county highway maintenance director, “but it’s stuck somewhere on a barge down the Illinois River.”

For the last several months, some aldermen, ward superintendents and other department employees have been amazed at the amount of salt Carey has authorized for use, particularly on days earlier in the season when little snow fell.

Their concerns came as early as October and November, when the city used up 30,000 tons. Since then, the city has tossed considerably more than 200,000 tons of salt on main thoroughfares.

“It’s been tossed out as if there were an inexhaustible supply, as if it were candy, but what public official would complain?” asked Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th). “When it’s snowing, people want their streets salted. The problem has been that the side streets haven’t been salted for weeks.”

Until the salt arrives, even routine trips will take on a certain element of adventure.

Jody Augustine’s trip to an Orland Park supermarket became an exercise in stunt driving as her car slipped on the frosted streets. She also witnessed four accidents.

“It stinks,” Augustine groused. “You slide everywhere, but you have to deal with it. There’s no choice.”