Cities Buy Less Road Salt This Year - CBS4 - WHBF Quad Cities, IL-IA News Weather Sports

Cities Buy Less Road Salt This Year

By Natalie Zarowny
nzarowny@cbs4qc.com

This year the city of Davenport ordered less than half the salt they normally would.

That's because there's so many leftovers from last winter.

"The prior year we ordered just under eight thousand tons of salt for the city of Davenport, this year, three thousand," said Steve Russell of the Davenport Public Works Department.

That comes down to a savings of over three hundred thousand dollars.

But it's not just Davenport that got a financial break on salt.

"We buy it by bulk, in barge loads, and it gets delivered up here once a year, and it gets distributed out to all the communities," said Russell.

The cities that are in on the buy with Davenport are Bettendorf, Moline, Clinton, Muscatine, Port Byron, and Princeton.

They're all happy to have the extra dough on hand.

"We're keeping a contingency, in case we have more snow than normal and need to order additional salt off the market," said Russell.

Folks at the Davenport Public Works Department said that's not likely.

The saved money will probably go back to the city's general budget.

For now, the focus at the Davenport Public Works Department isn't on saving money, it's about planning for this year's snow and ice, even if it doesn't end up being too bad.

"You still have to watch every storm, you have to plan and prepare, and you just don't have to work as long or use as much material as needed for a big storm," said Keith Addison of the Davenport Public Works Department.

Addison and other folks at Davenport's Public Works Department said the amount of salt they buy should last them all the way through March.