Above-average snowfalls and low temperatures this winter created widespread shortages of salt. Demand was so high that salt suppliers restricted shipments, briefly cut off municipalities and shut out private contractors for weeks at a time. “We’ve been in business for 11 years and had shortages before, but never this long,” says Tony Morra, co-owner of The Salt Depot, a distributor in Markham, Ont. “We were without salt for two weeks.

Rock salt is an industry staple for removing snow and ice from roads and parking lots. Although non-chloride ice-melting alternatives are available, property owners and municipalities often flinch at the cost of using them.

Morra is supplied by salt mines owned by Sifto Salt, the Canadian Salt Company (a subsidiary of Chicago-based Morton Salt) and Cargill Salt. “When there’s a shortage they are obliged to serve their municipal contracts first, which I totally understand,” he says. “What upset us was that suppliers were delivering absolutely zero salt to us or to our competitors. Our major concern was that for a while we were not even able to get one load or two loads of salt to offer a sand/salt mix as an alternative. I told my suppliers that a lot of my customers have hospitals and commercial parking lots to clear… But there was no one really to focus just on the private contractors, as far as the mines were concerned.”

Sifto Salt and Cargill Salt were unavailable for comment. When Landscape Trades asked Joe Wojtonik, spokesman for Morton Salt, if the company tried to put aside some product for private contractors’ use, he replied, “I really don’t know what the situation was there. What Morton strives to do is make sure that all of our customers are satisfied with supplies. But everybody’s main concern — and that would be even your readers — would be that people can get around safely. We have to look at the greater good. So that everyone can get from their homes to hospitals, to parking lots and so on. That’s got to be everybody’s main concern.”

Will the company be stepping up salt production for winter 2008-2009? “We’re preparing for a regular season’s inventory,” Wojtonik says. “We suggest ordering early. Try to stockpile 100 per cent of your pro-jected needs for next year, so there would be no problem down the road with getting salt because the municipalities have taken precedent.”

It would appear that even American muni-cipalities had easier access to Canadian salt this winter than our private contractors did. A news update carried March 6 by WREX-TV in Rockford, Ill. boasted that “Four thousand tons of salt is on its way [to Winnebago County, Ill.] from Canada.” On February 15, the Quad-City Times reported that the city of Davenport, Iowa and surrounding municipalities were able to order five train cars of salt from Saskatoon, Sask., “at a handsome price.” The purchase was handled by Doug House, a municipal service manager for the neighboring city of Moline, Ill. He, too, was unavailable for comment.

Effects of the shortage

Meanwhile, Canadian contractors got mixed reactions when they informed their clients about the shortage. Says Brent Ayles, general manager of Ayles Landscaping in Moncton, N.B, “We definitely had a severe shortage, but because the media covered it almost daily, it took a lot of the pressure off of us to have to explain to our commercial customers that we don’t have access to any salt. We had to spread sand, which doesn’t melt ice but at least provides traction.” In southern Ontario — where news coverage of the shortage was sporadic — contractors had difficulty, at times, convincing their clients that it was real. Says Jim Monk, owner of Markham Property Services, “At first some of our clients were in denial. They couldn’t believe it was happening. We offered them two alternatives: one, to salt in a more limited way — just the main entrances and the high traffic areas. The other option was going to a salt/sand mix and doing the entire parking lot. In some cases they refused to accept either option. It was, ‘No, you’re going to find salt and get it done.’ And we’re looking at them and saying: from where?”

Monk is the current board president of the Snow and Ice Management Association (SIMA), a Milwaukee, Wisc.-based organi-zation with Canadian and American members. On February 14, SIMA issued a press release confirming the shortage and warning property owners and members of the public to exercise caution. Landscape Ontario issued a similar alert on February 26.

Adds Monk, “A lot of my [SIMA] colleagues were able to talk to other members in different geographical areas and get salt from them. They had to pay the shipping charges, but at least they were getting the product; whereas in other cases there was no product to be had.” Shipping charges aside, the price of salt skyrocketed in both countries. According to Monk, price hikes ranged from 20 to over 50 per cent. “I guess even at a higher price you’re better off to have something to put down, because of the ramifications of pleasing the customer and also slip-and-fall liability,” Monk adds. “These issues outweighed the cost of the salt.”

Monk and others agree the price hikes narrowed contractors’ margins and in some cases, eliminated them. Snow and ice professionals who took the biggest hit were those with contracts that included salt application in a “package” of winter services, with no provision for the price escalation of salt and gas. Morra of the Salt Depot worries that this winter’s losses, combined with future insurance increases from slip-and-fall claims, might drive five to 10 per cent of his winter contractors out of business.

Observes insurer Darren Rodrigues of Sinclair-Cockburn Financial Group, Toronto, “It’s too soon to know the impact of the salt shortage on claims and insurance premiums because people have several years to file lawsuits. Considering the winter we had, we’ll be seeing the impact up until five years down the road.”

Lessons learned?

The question of how to address future salt shortages has contractors mulling over various possibilities. Although distributors and larger contracting firms will likely be stockpiling salt for next winter, there is a movement to curtail the use of salt through “sensible salting” methods.

Landscape Ontario’s Standard Form Snow and Ice Maintenance Contract offers some defense against slip-and-fall liability during a salt shortage. It states: The contractor will not be responsible to apply ice melting products unless the ice melting products are commercially and reasonably available to the contractor.

Explains Toronto attorney Robert Kennaley, who drew up the contract, “The reason why we say commercially available is that sometimes the client says ‘what do you mean you can’t get salt? I can walk down to the corner store and buy it in a half kilogram bag for five bucks. So pull your truck up to the door and buy all the little bags of salt that they have and come back.’ That’s NOT commercially available.” With regard to reasonable price, Kennaley adds, “We didn’t get more detailed about that [because] the price of salt is a delicate issue. The owner or property manager might want the contractor to assume the risk of a price escalation. But any contractor concerned that the price of salt might go through the roof may want to consider a more specific or detailed price escalation clause that says if the price exceeds X dollar amount per tonne, then our cost per application or per tonne or per pass will be increased by a certain percentage.” To strengthen the slip-and-fall defense, Kennaley encourages contractors to place the decision squarely on the property owner as to which ice-melting method (if any) to use in the event of a salt shortage. This requires discussion of various alternatives and owner’s written consent. “We want contractors and owners to understand, and make clear in their maintenance contracts, that the contractor is only hired to do what he or she is paid to do. Where the owner ‘makes the call’ and decides to pay for an option that does not best manage the risk of a slip and fall, the responsibility for that decision should lie with the owner,” he explains.

Jim Monk hopes that more of the responsibility for avoiding slips and falls will be shifted to the public. “Over the last few years, the onus has been on contractors and property owners to live up to unmaintainable standards. Everybody expects winter pavement to be the same as it is in July, and that’s not reasonable. They often don’t wear proper footwear. They don’t necessarily have proper snow tires. This winter was an example, not just from the salt shortage, but from the high volume of snow that we still live with in Canada and that means heavy winters. I think the onus should be on everybody to dress, walk and drive accordingly. If that’s a lesson that came out of this, I think it will be pretty valuable.”