Salt shortage in Wayland, sand to suffice

WAYLAND - The city of Wayland has already worked its way through more than 6 tons of salt this winter.

According to Gas Superintendent Barry Leichty, the city typically gets between 6 and 8 tons of salt and 20 tons of sand for the winter.

'This year has been a lot more ice than normal,” Leichty said.

Though the standard amount usually lasts them through the season, the extreme weather has caused the supply to dwindle faster than usual.

'We usually get our salt at the Burlington River Terminal,” he said. 'When I called, they had salt on hand, but it was all spoken for.”

He then tried going to Henry County and Washington County, both of which respectfully declined to part with their supply.

'They were getting low and didn't know how much they would need,” said Leichty. 'They weren't insistent that they weren't going to give me any, but they respectfully said ‘no' because of the salt shortages.”

For the moment, Wayland is using manufactured sand and focusing on traction control. The current plan is to spend the rest of the season applying sand rather than salt, as Leichty feels there's no danger they'll run out.

'We've got plenty of (sand); it's a pretty common resource around here,” he said. 'But with salt, you can only get so much up the river and when you get a large ice event like (the one) we've had.”

The city has two snow plows and one truck spreading salt and sand during the winter.