Tonawanda, N.Y. (WBEN) - The company supplying Western New York municipalities with rock salt issued a statement Monday, updating the delivery of salt supplies. The company says it's been working around the clock, but one town supervisor says that hasn't meant deliveries have arrived.
American Rock Salt issued the following statement on Monday:
"American Rock Salt has been working diligently to meet the demand from local government customers across New York State for salt supply. We realize some municipalities are concerned about supply, and we understand the frustration associated with this very difficult winter stressing our supply chain.
"Since Oct. 14, 2024, our team has worked relentlessly in the mine 24 hours a day, 101 out of the last 113 days, which included the Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and other holidays. We are extremely proud of the hard work of American Rock Salt’s 300-plus strong union members’ efforts to maintain salt production levels to satisfy this unprecedented demand. We also have taken additional measures to increase supply, including opening our reserve stockpiles; the purchase of new underground equipment to mine additional salt; and construction of more access points to our underground conveyor and bin system to help transport more salt to our processing equipment.
With these efforts, we have successfully increased daily production by over 25%, while maintaining a safe working environment. For further context, in 2024, American Rock Salt shipped 1.8 million tons of salt for the entirety of the winter season. This winter through January 2025 alone, we have already shipped over 2.1 million tons of salt. In total, we have mined and shipped more salt so far this winter than all of last year.
"Municipalities have acknowledged that in some instances, they have already used the level of salt in 2025 compared to the level they used for the entire winter season of 2024. Regardless, we are prioritizing resources and deliveries to ensure no one runs out of supply.
"This historic demand is due to the long stretch of cold weather events impacting the region, where the constantly low temperatures require salting roads for even very small snowfall events. This trend is consistent throughout the Northeast and across the nation, as even parts of Florida have experienced snowfall this winter. We are operating under the assumption that this strong demand will continue throughout the remainder of the 2025 winter season.
"Finally, it is our understanding that this historic demand is impacting the supply from all salt mining companies, foreign and domestic. American Rock Salt continues to be in direct contact with our state and local partners to ensure they continue to have adequate salt supply, and working non-stop to meet the needs of our valued customers and communities."
Despite Monday's statement, nothing has changed too much over the last several weeks for Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Joe Emminger. He's still waiting on thousands of tons of salt to be delivered, and highway officials have taken the matter into their own hands.
"Some municipalities, including the Town of Tonawanda, have taken upon themselves to go out to the salt mines out in Livingston County and pick up the rock salt, our rock salt that we need for our community," said Emminger in an interview with WBEN.
Earlier this season, Emminger announced that the town would restrict salting to main roads and intersections with stop signs and traffic lights.
"I believe that salting is taking place on most, if not all, of the town roads at this time. But again, if the weather turns turns bad and we're not able to get go out there and get the truck loads of salt that we need, that may change in the future," Emminger said. "So for now, our town roads are being salted, but that's subject to change in the future [dependent on] weather conditions."
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Emminger says part of the problem is a law passed in Albany in 2022. The American Rock Salt Act required municipalities to domestically acquire rock salt.
"That's probably fine for, maybe, most of the state, but when you're a border town, and to the West is Lake Erie and the Niagara River, and you have Canada to the Northwest, and Lake Ontario to the North, it really restricts where you can get your rock salt," Emminger said.
He adds there has been some lobbying done by the Highway Superintendents Association and the Association of Towns to tweak the law a little bit to allow municipalities to buy salt from Canada, as well as the U.S.
American Rock Salt is based in Mount Morris in Livingston County.