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Benjamin Shingler
Telegraph-Journal

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FREDERICTON - As New Brunswick braces for winter, municipalities and the province's Department of Transportation are stocking up on road salt to avoid a shortage like the one that made difficult driving conditions even more treacherous last year.

Enlarge Photo

Denis Landry

Denis Landry, minister of transportation, said last winter was unusually severe and unlikely to be repeated.

"This past year was exceptional," he said. "If you travelled the province, after Christmas every two days there was a storm."

But as a precaution, Landry said the department has ordered plenty of road salt.

In August, the provincial government ordered $9 million worth of road salt to top up storage facilities throughout the province.

The department has about 100,000 tonnes of salt and 400,000 tonnes of sand already on hand for the winter. At this time last year, the province had only 60,000 tonnes of salt ready for use.

The province's salt storage domes have been filled to 80 per cent of their capacity. A spokesman said they did not fill the domes completely because the salt needs to breathe.

Another 60,000 tonnes of salt is scheduled to be ordered throughout winter to keep the storage facilities topped up, and more can be ordered if required.

Nearly all of the province's 450 plowing trucks and other pieces of snow-clearing equipment are set for action, and 95 per cent of the operators hired, as the winter season approaches.

The government was $2.4 million over budget last winter because heavy snowfall throughout much of the province saw trucks pour more than 190,000 tonnes of the ice-melting mineral on New Brunswick highways.

The total cost to buy, deliver and apply salt to New Brunswick highways is about $60 a tonne.

Last year's stormy winter also had many municipalities scrambling for additional road salt.

"It was a very severe winter - probably one of the more severe winters we've had," said Mayhew Lloy, who is responsible for the City of Moncton's snow removal.

Lloy said the city has stocked up this winter and, even if New Brunswick experiences another "fairly severe winter," the 11,000 tonnes of salt currently in stock will likely last the season.

"We filled our salt dome in the early spring to take advantage of the better pricing then," he said.