Cookeville-Putnam Road Salt Supply Put To Use This Winter

Cookeville Public Works and The Putnam County Highway Department combined to use 150 tons of salt this past weekend.

Cookeville Public Works Director Greg Brown says the department has probably used about 250 tons of salt this Winter. Brown said he tries to keep the department fully stocked because of all the variables with salting roads.

“It’s always different, it depends on the temperature,” Brown said. “If it’s real cold you’re gonna use more, if it’s hovering at freezing then less salt will do more. Salt works best right around 30 degrees. So, the colder it gets, the more salt it takes to melt the same amount of ice.”

Putnam County Road Supervisor Randy Jones said the county roads mostly saw wet snow that did not freeze. However, Jones also different parts of the county needed different levels of mitigation.

“This was a strange event this past weekend,” Jones said. “Buffalo Valley there was just maybe a little skiff of snow on the grass. Then in Monterey, probably have eight inches of snow.”

Jones said the county was able to plow a majority of the roads, only needing salt in higher elevations. Jones said the county used about 50 to 60 tons over the weekend.

“It pushed off, it never did freeze and pack down like it does when it’s real cold,” Jones said. “We just used our plows and pushed a lot of it off. Of course, on the steep mountains we do have to salt.”

Despite the departments not buying road salt in the past two years, they both said after this winter they will need to replenish their 1,000 ton supply.