The nor’easter that slammed the Eastern Seaboard Sunday and Monday has strained Connecticut’s supplies of road salt, one of the key ingredients to prevent highway icing.
The state Department of Transportation, which procures road salt for many cities and towns, could not provide more to assist in the immediate clean-up of this storm. There also could be modest delays in getting more treated salt to about 15 communities that participate in a supply purchasing program run by the Capitol Region Council of Governments.
But officials at both the state and regional levels did not anticipate any obstacles Monday in keeping municipal public works departments supplied for the remainder of the winter.
The transportation department “is well-positioned for winter weather operations,” spokesman Josh Morgan said, adding it “has plenty of salt, fuel and materials” to meet its own responsibilities to clear state highways and routes.
But “CTDOT is not able to supply municipalities with salt” to cover immediate needs, he said, adding the department “has been working closely with towns and cities and connecting them with vendors if they need more supplies.”
Those vendors, however, are reeling themselves following a blizzard that dropped 1 to 3 feet of snow on Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states and roughly 1 to 2 feet in Connecticut.
The Capitol Region Council of Governments has a regional purchasing program for salt and other road-clearing essentials available to far more than its 38 member communities.
More than 75 cities and towns are participating in a collective salt-purchasing program with Morton, and about 15 communities learned Monday there will be a modest delay in getting more treated salt to replenish what they’ve exhausted in this latest storm, said Kim Bona, program manager for the Capitol region purchasing council.
That treated salt, which does less damage to vehicles than regular road salt and is more effective at clearing ice at low temperatures, won’t be available until early next week, Bona said, adding that communities likely would receive additional regular salt sooner.
“This winter is certainly, significantly more extreme than we’ve experienced recently, and it’s certainly put a strain on the system,” added Matt Hart, executive director of the Capitol Region Council of Governments.
Leaders of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the state’s Council of Small Towns both said none of their members Monday reported any immediate crisis in supplies that would hinder their response to clearing up from the latest storm.
But both noted that cities and towns have been tested severely by the severity of this winter.
“I’m sure that certain communities will have to tap their reserves” to cover overtime, supplies and other expenses related to snow removal, CCM Executive Director Joe DeLong said.
Communities rely heavily on the state’s Town Aid Road grant to help meet these expenses, particularly during winters marked by heavy snowfalls and long stretches of sub-freezing temperatures. The latter, local officials say, can exhaust salt and sand supplies even without precipitation. Ice that melts under the midday sun creates water flows that shift and quickly refreeze, creating new black ice spots daily.
And while Gov. Ned Lamont and the General Assembly increased the Town Aid Road grant this fiscal year from $60 million to $80 million, that can’t offset the strain that communities’ winter budgets face because overall state aid has lagged inflation for decades, costing them hundreds of millions annually, DeLong added.
“They’ve been stretched very thin for a [long] period of time.”
Betsy Gara, executive director of the Council of Small Towns, predicted heavy reliance on the TAR grant for snow removal would translate into less repaving and other basic road maintenance this spring. “That may certainly be a problem down the line,” she said.