Local suppliers feeding rock salt demands across state

COEYMANS, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Another winter storm is headed our way and many are trying to prepare for the storm by stocking up on rock salt. But there’s a rock salt shortage happening across the state and it’s brought truck drivers from all over the region to Coeymans. 

Inside of a warehouse at the Port of Coeymans you’ll find a small mountain of rock salt. An employee said the giant pile was even bigger just two days ago. The warehouse was nearly full but delivery drivers from Syracuse, Buffalo, Long Island and even New Jersey have been picking up rock salt here.

“Right now we are loading up over 300 trucks a day with salt and those trucks will carry 22 to 33 tons of salt each. They’ll deliver it to the municipalities,” said Josh Kowalski, the Vice President of Sales and Business Development at the Port of Coeymans.

Those municipalities will deliver it to your streets for safer sidewalks and roadways. Kowalski said the cold weather and the amount of storms this winter has led to unprecedented demand and put a strain on the rock salt supply.

“It’s not the big storms that you move the most salt, it’s the little ones that happen every two and three days,” said Kowalski.

The Port of Coeymans is owned and operated by Carver Companies and they lease space to three local rock salt suppliers, Apalachee Salt, Scotwood Industries, and Eastern Atlantic Salt. 

Kowalski said the salt takes a two week journey to get to the port from overseas.

“We get it from multiple countries including Chile, Italy, Egypt. It comes in by a vessel, so the ship will come in carrying 30 to 40,000 tons. We will offload that. We’ll send a crew to offload it to our large haul trucks and will bring it to the salt storage buildings,” said Kowalski. 

Once it arrives, those suppliers typically serve the Capital Region, southern Vermont, and western Massachusetts. 

“When we get events like this, they’ll come in with their trucks and we’ll load them up and scale them out and send them on their way,” said Kowalski. 

The port handles stone and metal shipments, and much more, but crews have been diverted to salt traffic recently. 

“We’re all directing traffic. We’re all utilizing the equipment that we have to load up these trucks and move them through the line as fast as we can,” said Kowalski.

He said they have a significant stockpile but they’ve been moving through it. “Our phone has been ringing off the hook. People have recommended us as the place to go.”

And other suppliers, like American Rock Salt, are also feeling the pinch. A spokesperson said: 

“Since October 14, 2024, our team has worked relentlessly in the mine 24 hours a day, 101 out of the last 113 days which included Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and other holidays. We are extremely proud of the hard work of American Rock Salt’s 300+ strong union members’ efforts to maintain salt production levels to satisfy this unprecedented demand.”

Anthony Farone has worked in the rock salt business for 34 years. He’s an operations manager at the port. He said sometimes you see a demand surge, like the one right now, but the last two years have had mild winters.

“Sometimes you don’t know what the demand is so it’s feast or famine. You either have it or you don’t. So you have to be prepared for these kind of things to happen,” said Farone.

“Where are you guys right now? Are you feasting or is it famine?” I asked. “It’s famine right now. You’ve gotta keep up with the demand, so we’re doing all we can do,” said Farone.

He has been working overtime to keep up with demand. “Just keep bagging away, that just makes more work so that’s good,” said Farone.

And he expects to continue working overtime in the weeks to come. “I know they have a lot more salt ships coming in, so we’ll be able to keep up with it,” said Farone.