MANSFIELD — The great winter road salt worries are over for most of Richland County.
The Richland County Board of Commissioners on Thursday approved the only bid submitted for a county rock salt contract with Morton Salt Co. from Chicago.
This contract will supply up to 6,700 tons of road salt at a cost of $93.18 per ton for all local government entities throughout the county, except the cities of Mansfield and Shelby, as well as Washington Township.
Officials in those locations seek their own salt contracts, according to Richland County Engineer Adam Gove. Mansfield officials plan to open salt contract bids Sept. 11 at noon.
The new county contract requires that a minimum of 90 percent of the allocation be purchased by the various local governments, Gove said.
Commissioners earlier this month approved a state contract for 3,500 tons for use on the county’s 347 miles road. That procurement required three bid solicitations through the Ohio Dept. of Transportation before any company offered to supply salt to Richland County.
The county will pay $92 per ton under that contract, though Gove said the salt will be off-loaded at the Ohio Dept. of Transportation outpost near the intersection of I-71 and Ohio 97. He said the county will be responsible for picking it up and moving it to various county garage locations.
After securing the county’s salt through the state contract, Gove obtained permission to rebid the county contract a second time after zero bids were submitted in July.
At the time, the county engineer said, “I’m trying not to leave townships and villages hanging out to dry. We want to try to help them find some salt, so we did make some changes to our usual county contract.”
In addition to the 90 percent minimum purchase, Gove met with local officials and lowered the request to 6,700 tons from the original ask of 18,000 tons.
“I asked all the townships and villages and municipalities to really look at what they have on hand and what they think they need to get through the season,” he said.
“We cut it down to 6,700 tons, so that I think helped bring in this bid, as well as putting a requirement that we are going to purchase a minimum of 90 percent of what we put into this contract,” Gove said.
Salt under the county contract will be delivered to each township, village and city participating in the purchase.
“The price doesn’t sound like a good deal, but based on what the state was seeing, this was a good price for delivered salt,” Gove said.
Shortages and rising prices have been an issue in recent years for rock salt. Published reports blame a myriad of factors, including systemic supply chain disruptions, localized terminal closures and low carryover inventory resulting from a severe winter.
Does this new contract end the winter road salt worries for the majority of the county?
“As long as we’re able to award and they sign a contract, I would hope so, yes,” Gove said.
