Low salt stocks turn roads into slippery slopes
The heavy snowfall this winter may be good news for children and winter sports enthusiasts. But for road traffic officials it is proving to be a real problem.
Across Europe there is a shortage of salt for de-icing roads. Last winter supplies were also low, but this winter the shortage has become clear much earlier in the season.
The problem could be that after years of relatively mild winters the Swiss were not prepared for such difficult winter conditions. Or it could be down to the existence of a salt monopoly.
“If you are in Lörrach [near Basel], looking north [to Germany], where it is total chaos and there are no salt reserves left at all, you have to say we have it pretty good,” said Jürg Lieberherr, the director of the Swiss salt works.
United Swiss Salt Works, which extracts between 400,000 and 500,000 tonnes of salt every year, is owned by the cantons (excluding Vaud), the Principality of Liechtenstein and Südsalz Ltd of Heilbronn, Germany. The cantons regulate the sale of salt in accordance with an agreement dating from 1973.
Otto Ineichen, a Radical Party parliamentarian, and other politicians are calling for an opening of the market given that the cantonal salt monopoly is apparently unable to satisfy demand.
End to monopoly?
Ineichen’s initiative was rebuffed in 2005 by the cantons, which argued that their monopoly was necessary to ensure adequate salt provision.
Lieberherr does not see the cantonal-owned monopoly as the problem. “This is not a Swiss or a structural deficit,” he said. “This is a meteorological problem.” A large part of the European continent had been affected by the third harsh winter in a row.
The Swiss Salt Works director said raising production was not the answer. “No one can afford that. To align production to a peak in demand is more than risky.
“And since this is a continent-wide problem there is virtually no chance of obtaining the needed quantity of salt,” he said.
Reserve stocks
The other option is to increase stocks. Lieberherr says he has been trying to acquire de-icing salt across Europe, but with very limited success.
Bernhard Jurt of the road authorities in the city of Lucerne, begs to disagree about the chances of finding additional salt sources.
He claims that he managed to buy more than 200 tons of the “white gold” in neighbouring Italy at short notice, hoping that will help ease the relative shortage in central Switzerland.
Jurt says he was perplexed to hear that the stocks stored by United Salt Works would already be low at the beginning of winter and an allocation system would be introduced.
He is therefore calling for a concerted effort by the city authorities across Switzerland to set production targets for the salt works, which are based on the River Rhine outside Basel.
Mediterranean
For its part, the company is defending the quota system.
“The aim was to avoid the worst so we would not literally do a belly-landing,” said United Salt’s Lieberherr.
Jurt agrees that the city of Lucerne has had no major problems with the company in the past. But he wonders whether it has tried hard enough to acquire additional quantities of salt, particularly from countries bordering the Mediterranean.
The appeal for more activity on the market does not seem to convince the director of United Salt. He warns of unreliable trading partners trying to cheat customers.
Claims
Liebermann says the increasing demand in salt is partly due to upgrades in the country’s motorway system, including the construction of bypasses and circular roads in the Zurich area and the Jura region.
Other reasons are the high demands made by motorists, but also by pedestrians and cyclists.
“Drivers nowadays expect the snow to be cleared from the roads. They don’t want to go slow and adapt to the wintry conditions,” said Jurt, who is senior official of Lucerne’s road services.
But fortunately the salting technique has been refined. Our motto is: use as little as possible but as much as necessary,” Jurt said.
The monopoly on salt production is enshrined in the Swiss constitution and is organised by the cantons. Any attempt to do away with it would require a nationwide vote.
The 26 cantons currently regulate the sale of salt in accordance with an agreement from 1973.
All but one of them have mandated the United Swiss Salt Works on the Rhine near Basel with the production of salt.
The Bex Salt Mines are entrusted with production for the western canton of Vaud.
Besides salt, gravel is used on local roads and pavements. Tests have also been carried out with wood chips.
To protect the environment many roads have a special water treatment system for dealing with the salt water.
The Federal Environment Office says the use of salt on roads is a question of weighing up the safety needs of the population against environmental concerns.
The Swiss specialty chemical company, Clariant, announced it will have to suspend production of de-icing liquid for several days in January.
The Basel-based firm blamed a supply shortage of glycol which is used for its antifreeze.
Clariant supplies about 100 airports in Europe with the product.
However, the Swiss airports of Zurich, Basel and Geneva say they have enough reserve stocks which they have been buying from another producer.
(Adapted from German by Urs Geiser)
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