DAYTON  — Gov. Ted Strickland has asked the state highway department to review surging prices in road salt, which have raised concerns around Ohio about whether supplies will hold this winter, officials said Thursday.

Some cities report they’re paying between $67 and $150 per ton for salt, compared to around $47 per ton last year.

Dayton will go into the winter with less salt than usual because it paid $144 per ton.

“We are certainly not going to be able to treat (city streets) like we did last year if we have similar weather patterns,” City Manager Rashad Young said.

The state paid $42 a ton for salt last year. This year it is costing about $60, said Scott Varner, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation. Strickland requested a review, he said.

Ohio will use a bid-analysis team it recently set up for the purpose of looking at the rising costs of construction to study the market for road salt, Varner said.

The salt industry says increased demand and higher fuel costs are to blame for the higher prices.

The United States used a near-record 20.3 million tons of road salt last year, largely because areas from the Northeast to the Midwest had heavier-than-average snowfall.

Communities that needed additional salt late in the season had trouble finding it because supplier stockpiles had also been depleted, according to Dick Hanneman, president of the Salt Institute, a trade group.

The rising cost of gasoline and diesel compounded the situation, Hanneman said. Road salt — which, unlike table salt, is sold in large crystals — is transported by barge and truck from mines in Kansas, Louisiana and Texas. Some is shipped from as far away as Chile in South America.

State agencies that maintain interstate highways are supplied first, leaving smaller communities the hardest hit by the shortage, Hanneman said.

Varner said Ohio uses about 700,000 tons of salt during a typical winter. The state highway department currently has 500,000 tons in hand or on the way, and has the resources to buy whatever additional salt might be necessary, he said.

But city or county governments may be in a different boat. ODOT is responsible only for salting state highways and most of the interstate system in Ohio. City and county roads fall to those jurisdictions.

Costs vary among cities in southwest Ohio.

Cargill Inc., which mines salt in Ohio, set bids at $64 to $69 a ton, so Kettering, Fairborn, Riverside and some others limited their budget damage.

But Morton, which transports salt from Louisiana, charged its customers — including Centerville, Huber Heights and Beavercreek — about $100 a ton.

“It would be cheaper for me to fill my hopper with dollar bills and spread them on the road, because at least then drivers would slow down to pick them up,” said Bob Geyer, Greene County engineer.

The International Salt Company, which gets its product in South America and doesn’t usually sell in Ohio, had more available. But spokesman Mark Roberts said transportation costs triggered a price of $140 to $150 a ton for Dayton, Vandalia and others.

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