Officials face critical road salt shortage as winter storms approach — and no deliveries are in sight

Road salt supplies have reached critically low levels across Suffolk County as area highway departments gear up to face two more winter weather events this week alone — the latest in a series of storms that have battered the island this winter.

And now the company that supplies highway crews across Long Island, NYC, Westchester and Rockland with road salt — Atlantic Salt of Staten Island — has itself run out, according to area highway officials.

Officials say they were informed today by the supplier that the deliveries they expected today wouldn’t be arriving.

“They said their barge was delayed,” Southold Town Highway Superintendent Vincent Orlando said today. They didn’t provide any additional information — or an ETA, he said.

Officials in Riverhead and Brookhaven got the same message.

Jason Archambault, spokesman for Massachusetts-based Eastern Salt, which owns Atlantic Salt, did not return multiple calls over the past two days seeking comment for this story.

Orlando got a 30-ton delivery yesterday. He was promised 40 tons, he said. But even that would not have been enough. Southold has had 240 tons on order for two weeks.

“I’m desperately low,” Orlando said.

The Riverhead Highway Department has had 1,100 tons of salt on order for more than two weeks, Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson said today. Deliveries promised for yesterday and today didn’t arrive.

The town doesn’t have enough material for the one-two punch of winter weather expected tonight and tomorrow night, Woodson said.

The National Weather Service is forecasting snow, sleet and freezing rain on island this evening, which will leave the area with one about two inches of snow and a glaze of ice this evening— probably the worst possible forecast when salt supplies are low. The weather service this afternoon issued a winter storm watch for Wednesday evening through Thursday evening — four to eight inches of snow is forecast.

Brookhaven Town has barely enough to get through tonight, Losquadro said. The town has 12 highway facilities where salt is stored. Today, several of them are empty and the others are low, said Brookhaven Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro.

“They told us we won’t be getting anything tomorrow,” Losquadro said.

The town has had to mix in so much sand to conserve on salt, it’s put a pinch into its normally abundant sand supplies too, Losquadro said this afternoon.

“All the towns are in the same boat,” said Woodson, who in January took office as president of the Suffolk County Highway Superintendents Association.

Things aren’t much better for the county.

“We’re at critical levels,” Jason Meyers, a spokesperson for County Executive Steve Bellone said this morning. “We’re down to 2,600 tons and that’s not enough to handle the next two storms.” Meyers said this morning the county was awaiting delivery on a 3,000-ton emergency order. This afternoon, he said the county “received a few hundred tons this morning and expected to receive an additional 700-1,000 tonight.”

The state Department of Transportation’s Long Island region ““has nearly 9,000 tons of salt on hand which is enough to handle the weather that is forecast this week,” according to NYSDOT spokesperson Eileen Peters. She said the state’s highway yards on Long Island expect delivery of an additional 4,500 tons by  Thursday.

Deliveries slowed to a near standstill about a month ago, shortly after the Jan. 26 blizzard, according to officials.

But the snow and ice kept coming throughout the month of February.

“I have enough material to make one pass through Rocky Point tonight,” Losquadro said. That is one of Brookhaven’s hilliest areas that always requires salt, he said.

“But rain tomorrow will wash away any residual material on the road. Then tomorrow night into Thursday we’re supposed to get a significant amount of snow,” Losquadro said.

“It’s a very, very bad situation.”

Atlantic Salt, which operates out of a waterfront site in Staten Island, won a state bid for road salt — $68.95 per ton. Counties and municipalities can purchase the material at the state contract price, which is significantly cheaper than they’d be able to buy it on their own.

“I think it’s a classic case of a company overextending themselves,” Losquadro said today.

Losquadro said Atlantic in its contract with Brookhaven committed to supplying as much as 1,200 tons per day.

“If we get 300 tons per day, we’d consider ourselves very fortunate,” he said.

“With demand the way it’s been, they can’t load up the number of trucks they need to load in order to adequately supply all the municipalities they’re in contract with. The size of their terminal just won’t allow it,” Losquadro said.

“They are trying to keep all their customers afloat,” he said.

Atlantic had a hard time meeting demand last winter too, highway officials say. But 2014 was a rough winter and salt supplies dwindled across the country in the face of peak demand.

“I’ve spoken to representatives from the Office of General Services, which administers the state contract. I’ve spoken to representatives of the governor’s office,” Losquadro said. “I’ve done what I needed to do, keeping yards open to take deliveries on weekends and at night, because you take what you can get whenever you can get it,” Losquadro said. “That effectively drives up the cost of the product, because I have to pay overtime. But you do what you need to do for the sake of public safety.”

Losquadro says he’s been in discussion with other suppliers in New England and looking into alternative supply routes. One alternative route could be the deepwater port of Port Jefferson, Losquadro said.

“I may go out to bid privately and not buy off the state contract [next year],” Losquadro said.

Losquadro said if the five East End towns got together with Brookhaven — and maybe even some towns of western Suffolk — on a bid for salt, they could get competitive pricing. Even if it’s not as low as the state bid price, when overtime they’ve had to pay in order to accept deliveries on nights and weekends  — which all the towns say they’ve had to do, because “you take it whenever you can get it,” Losquadro said — it might work out to be the same price.

Woodson said he’d like to see a salt distribution facility sited somewhere in eastern Suffolk.

A facility big enough to supply the whole region would be very expensive to build, Losquadro said — on the order of $10 million. “I’ve actually looked into doing that myself.”

Woodson would like state legislators to encourage Atlantic or another private supplier to build a facility in Suffolk, he said.

Looking at the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow night and his depleted storage facility, Orlando was exasperated this afternoon.

“We can plow till the cows come home but we need to put down the sand-salt when we’re done,” he said.

Freezing rain, as is forecast tonight, makes it even more difficult to be low on salt, he said. Applying only sand doesn’t really do the trick.

“I guess we’re going to need to ask people to stay off the roads,” he said. “This is not a good situation.”