Which State Uses The Most Road Salt?

With all the snow, ice, and rain we've been getting lately here in the Stateline, supplies of road salt are running extremely low, especially here in Rockford.

From My Stateline:

The Department of Public Works says that, with the snow and rain, lately, they are having a hard time finding salt themselves.

Street Division Superintendent Mitch Leatherby said, "Once January hit, we've been in back-to-back operations it seems, like, every other day. It's not only difficult for us to get salt, it's also been difficult for any other municipality in the surrounding area. So, all the salt suppliers, regionally, are doing the best they can to keep everybody afloat until we at least get a break for a couple of weeks, to get that reserve built up to where we want it to be."

Leatherby said his men are pulling twelve-hour shifts to treat the main roads, leaving the residential streets at the short end of the stick.

On top of that, once the temperature drops below 10 degrees, the salt ultimately becomes ineffective.

"With everything that happened last week, with the thickness of the ice, it's going to take multiple rounds to get them back to bare pavement," Leatherby said.

So, who's using up all the road salt? According to Wikipedia, it's all the states that make up what's called the "Salt Belt."

States in the salt belt include Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Washington DC.

And, where does road salt come from?

Okay, if we run out of the stuff, there's always...uh...beet juice: