ELKHART CO. — Local road departments are trying to make the best of a bad situation as many counties are running low on road salt. In fact, Marshall County is completely out of salt and is using a sand/chemical mixture to cope.

Other counties are finding it nearly impossible to get salt. Barges that carry it from suppliers have to come in through the Great Lakes. This time of year, they're usually frozen.

The increased demand is taking a bite out of budgets.

"There has been a pretty good demand for salt around the country," Mike Beasey of the Elkhart County Highway Department.

The Elkhart County Highway Department is keeping a close eye on its salt supply.

“This has been a strange winter, where you might expect we'd get some snow, and then a week or two of nothing, it seems like every few days, we have to start over again with more snow,” Beasey explained. “This means more salt is being utilized."

As a precaution the department asked the county for a $200 appropriation to put toward more salt.

Since salt supplies locally and around the country are dwindling and in short supply, the county feels it's best to see if it can buy any more salt, if it is out there.

"I think I read where we've had 75 inches of snow this year, which is the highest in 90 years or something — we're real close to a record,” County Commissioner Mike Yoder said. “So yes, everybody's just run out of salt. [It’s] hard to find."

Salt use is also way up at the Goshen Street Department. It asked the city for an extra $50,000 to pay for what it’s used already.

“As far as buying more salt, at this point we are not doing that,” said Barb La Dow of the Goshen Street Department. “There's no salt available to purchase. We've checked around, as many places as we can think of, and there's just nothing available."

The Elkhart County Highway Department paid $60 for a ton of salt last year. This year, that jumped to $140 per ton. The Elkhart City Street Department says it's making due with the supply it has for now.