Cargill salt mine works around the clock to meet winter delivery demand

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - Cargill’s salt mine on Whisky Island is operating at full capacity as Northeast Ohio faces a relentless winter, with workers putting in 12-hour days to meet the demand.

PJ King, the surface superintendent, said there is no salt shortage at the Cargill Cleveland mine.

The facility has salt on hand to fulfill orders but cannot deliver it fast enough to meet current needs.

“We’ve delivered more than 75% of the contracted allotment of salt that the city of Cleveland had,” King said.

The delivery bottleneck has created long lines of trucks outside the mine, stretching for miles as drivers wait to load salt for distribution across Northeast Ohio.

King explained workers are operating the mine six to seven days a week, with staff working 12-hour shifts seven days a week.

Shawnah Rados, the traffic supervisor, said trucks are coming through nonstop to deliver salt to the Ohio Department of Transportation and cities across Northeast Ohio.

“Typically on a normal day we’re loading 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., but because of the truck volume we’ve been going from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” Rados said.

About 600 trucks moved through Cargill on Wednesday to load salt for road treatment.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep up,” Rados said.

Several cities in the area, including Cleveland, North Royalton and Avon, are managing their salt supplies during the harsh winter conditions.

Avon Mayor Bryan Jensen said the city’s salt supply is currently in good shape, though they are still waiting for additional deliveries.

The City continues to receive shipments from our vendor and appreciates their hard work in getting our orders fulfilled. The extreme cold temperatures make salting less effective, but we do have teams currently out there plowing. We ask for patience as crews continue working around the clock to service approximately 3,000 lane miles across the City – a distance that’s equivalent to driving from Boston to Seattle.