http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kcur/local-kcur-803058.mp3
Kansas City, Mo. – Transportation and handling costs have driven up the price of a simple commodity that may affect your winter driving. KCUR's Dan Verbeck has more of the story:
Last winter Missouri Department of Transportation paid an average price of $42 per ton of rock salt it bought. This season it averages to forty seven. Five dollars might not seem like much, until you consider how much has been stockpiled for the eight county Kansas City metro district. MoDot's Steve Porter has calculations for salt barn piles. In his words,
"we have 49 thousand tons of salt that we purchased over the summer and what we had left over from last year. So we're at full capacity. We've added about two thousand tons capacity from last year."
The biggest bid in what wound up being an average tonnage price of forty seven dollars, says Porter, was nearly 150 dollars and rejected out of hand.
Porter adds his departments mission is to keep highest travelled roads open so, no matter the salt price, they'll alter methods of road cleaning if they have to.