Road crews dealing with shortage in cinders supply
The closure of several nearby coal-fired power plants coupled with the booming natural gas drilling industry is creating a shortage of cinders that has forced many local public works crews to wonder if they’ll soon have to find an alternative for treating winter roads.
“There is going to be an issue coming up,” Washington City Councilman Ken Westcott said. “The (natural) gas guys are buying up all the materials for their job sites. We’re having trouble this year and potentially moving forward we’ll continue having problems getting material.”
Westcott, who supervises the city’s road crew, said it has enough cinders and salt to get through the rest of the season barring a monster storm in the next few weeks, but he’s not sure what will happen if this trend continues next season. He added the road crew is preparing for another wintry mix today and will use more cinders than salt in the aggregate mixture because of recent “rationing” by salt suppliers.
“Moving forward, we’re going to have to hustle to put up with the materials,” Westcott said. “But the stuff on the cinders, that’s going to be a continuing problem. Obviously, we bought a little bit more than we anticipated based on that. It’s going to be tougher for the city of Washington but all municipalities because everyone is having trouble finding it.”
Suppliers have told Westcott the natural gas drilling companies purchased the bulk of the inventory to help add grip to access roads and well pads.
Range Resources spokesman Mark Windle said the company’s “aggregate spend has been pretty flat” in recent years, although that budget includes more than just cinders.
The cinders issue isn’t isolated to just Washington.
“We’re not hurting yet, but if we keep getting these ice storms we might be,” East Finley Township roadmaster Rick Dorsey said. “It’s next year I’m worried about. If this keeps going the way it is, it’s going to be hard to get and we’ll have to start with something else.”
Dorsey noted that the recent closures of several coal power plants in both the Monongahela and Ohio river valleys have hurt production of the byproduct from electricity generation. Cinders have long been used to add grip to the roads as a cheaper alternative to salt.
“Suppliers are giving me the same answer: ‘There’s no cinders,'” Dorsey said. “Whether someone’s hoarding them, I don’t know.”
The shortage has hit suppliers that are typically able to distribute into the springtime.
A worker who answered the phone at A&S Landscaping but declined to identify himself said they’ve been without cinders since the first week of February. Typically, the suppler along Route 19 in North Strabane Township continues to sell cinders through May, the worker said.
Dave Russell, owner of Russell Brothers in Washington, reported similar supply issues.
“They just can’t make them fast enough,” Russell said. “The demand is just way exceeding the supply. There’s just not as many of them.”
He added that his business has moved on to sell other aggregates, including small limestone and grits that might not be as effective as cinders, but also don’t blacken the roads or clog the sewers.
“But the old-timers love the cinders because they’re black and draw the heat out of the sun,” Russell said.
Dorsey said his township has worked closely with neighboring Morris and West Finley townships in Washington County and Morris Township in Greene County to search for available supplies. They’re now preparing to use other aggregates, such as antiskid “pea gravel” dredged from the rivers. However, the influx of transportation funding in Pennsylvania could drive up the cost on that material since it’s used in many paving projects, Dorsey said.
“PennDOT has so many new projects, it’s affecting the amount of antiskid available,” Dorsey said.