Relentless winter leaves N.Y. salt mine unable to keep up

HAMPTON CORNERS -- The story of this brutal winter may best be told 60 miles east of Buffalo, where a mine runs as deep as the Empire State Building is tall.

It's where you'll find a couple of hundred miners 1,300 feet below ground working nine-hour shifts, seven days a week to keep up with the nation's voracious appetite for this season's hottest commodity: salt.

It's been crucial for de-icing the thousands of miles of slippery roads this winter, whether you're in Buffalo or Atlanta or somewhere in between.

"You can't keep up," with the demand, Joe Bucci said. "It's impossible." Bucci, 69, is one of the owners of American Rock Salt, situated just off Interstate 390, a few miles from SUNY Geneseo.

The old mine in nearby Retsof collapsed in 1994, and when the Dutch owners decided not to rebuild, Bucci and partners Gunther Buerman and Neil Cohen opened American Rock Salt, bringing back a long, proud mining tradition to Livingston County.

Sitting atop a thick seam of salt that runs through to Ohio, American Rock Salt and its 10,000 acres of mineral rights is billed as the largest salt mine in the United States, producing more than 4 million tons a year. The mine should churn out salt for at least the next 80 years.

But this year, the problem is getting the salt out of the ground fast enough to meet the surge in demand created by snowstorms pounding away at many parts of the United States. That happened again just last week across the Northeast and South.

Less than three months ago, the company had 700,000 tons of salt stockpiled for the winter at its facility on Route 63. The mound reached as high as 80 feet and covered an area the size of 3½ football fields.

It's all gone.

Now, just as soon as the salt can be hoisted to the surface, there's a tractor trailer or boxcar waiting to haul it away to customers scattered across New York and 11 other states throughout the Northeast and Midwest.

Even the most prepared communities are now ordering tons more salt this winter, only to find they have to get in line.

"We're getting low," said John Loffredo, public works commissioner of Erie County, which buys from American Rock Salt, "and the delivery has trickled down quite a bit."