By Curtis Gilbert

MPR.org/90.1 FM

St. Paul — As cities around the state prepare for the inevitable start of winter snow plowing, they’re feeling a budget pinch from a nationwide shortage of road salt.

State transportation officials plan to buy more than 275,000 tons of salt this year at prices that are 4.3 percent higher than last year. Cities and counties around the state will buy even more. Collectively, they’ve ordered over 375,000 tons for this winter – at even higher prices. On average they’ll see an 8 percent price hike this year.

The reason salt will be more expensive is simple. A rough winter last year depleted salt stockpiles around the country. As a result, public works departments are ordering extra salt this year, fearing another brutal season.

Cargill, one of the country’s largest producers of road salt, has been struggling to keep up with demand, company spokesman Mark Klein said.

“We’ve been working weekends at our three salt mines in the United States since this summer, which is somewhat unheard of,” he said. “Usually the summer is the time you kick back a little. But we’ve already had the pedal to the medal.”

There’s so much demand, Klein said, that Cargill has had to limit the number salt contracts it bids on.

“We’ve had to be somewhat selective of where we bid, and it’s not just in Minnesota,” he said. “It’s in other states as well, because we have to make sure that if we bid on a contract we’re going to have that salt available. We can’t make a promise we can’t keep.”

Last year, Cargill put out bids to provide salt to nearly 350 Minnesota cities, counties and sites operated by the state Department of Transportation. This year, it bid on a little more than a third of those contracts. Morton, another major salt supplier, also put out far fewer bids.