Carrie Jones

Jan 28, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Psychiatry.

---

MOUNT DESERT ISLAND REGION—Approving a budget, still focusing on creating a website, and reelecting its officers all quickly occurred at the League of Towns’ meeting, January 27, but it was the salt bids that gathered a bit more conversation and was eventually tabled until the group of municipal administrators in the Mount Desert Island region (and Ellsworth) meet again in February.

“They are out of salt. Everybody’s out of salt. There’s no salt in Searsport. If you want salt in Searsport, you are out of luck,” said Lamoine Administrative Assistant Stu Marckoon.

“I heard that,” said Tremont Town Manager and League of Towns’ Chair Jesse Dunbar. He’d also heard that salt suppliers had prioritized municipalities and that contractors are looking for road salt.

Mount Desert Town Manager Alex Kimball said that during his time in the Portland region that they’d stay with companies year after year because it was important to be a priority and stay a priority for the road salt provider. He also said he and the town’s public works director were surprised by the current costs.

Dunbar said that the towns that have previously accepted the state bid are still with different salt vendors. The state, he said, awarded salt bids to three different companies including Morton and New England.

Road salt in Maine has undergone supply shortages in the past due to heavier use than expected or supply chain transportation issues.

According to a 2021 article in Down East Magazine, “One of Maine’s biggest suppliers, Morton Salt (yes, of the umbrella-girl table salt), harvests sodium chloride from open-pit mines on the Atacama flats using blasting and heavy machinery. The salt is then crushed there in Chile, and before it sets sail for the U.S., Morton runs it through giant sieves that sort it to meet buyers’ specifications. Maine’s highway authorities like a coarser blend, according to DOT highway maintenance engineer Brian Burne — better to cut through the thick ice that forms on the state’s roads.”

Burne told the magazine’s Rob Wolfe, “You don’t want it too fine and dusty. You want some fine grains to go into action immediately, but also some large grains that have some staying power and can go way down into the ice.”

“Maine’s highway salt passes through a series of sieves with mesh sizes from a half inch all the way down to numbered sizes — No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, etc. — that sort grains by millimeters and microns. The smallest bits in Maine’s salt cocktail make it through No. 30 and measure just 0.6 millimeters across,” Wolfe wrote.

All year, ships bring salt from Chile, through the Panama Canal and then to the United States. In Maine, it usually goes to the Sprague Energy shipping terminal in Portland.

It is eventually piled up into giant hills of salt. It’s eventually compressed and dispersed. In 2021, the MaineDOT paid an average of $60 a ton according to Down East.

The salt can also cause a lot of damage.

According to Wolfe, “When ice and snow melt, the runoff carries salt into ponds, streams, and groundwater, where it can endanger native flora and fauna. The 15 million tons of road salt dumped on roads across the U.S. each year are estimated to cause an annual $16 to $19 billion worth of infrastructure decay. The elevated levels of lead in Flint, Michigan’s headline-making water crisis are believed to be the result of pipes steadily corroded by water laden with road salt.”

Locally, it has been linked to well contamination in Tremont.

Road salt also reduces winter car crashes. On four-lane roads, it’s use creates a 93% crash reduction according to the American Highway Users Alliance.

According to a 2022 University of Maine study, in 2019-2020, the state used approximately 493,000 tons of road salt. That’s 787 pounds per resident.

Later in the meeting, Bar Harbor Town Manager James Smith had analyzed the town’s salt bids if the group bought salt together. Most towns showed a savings in the preliminary numbers.

In the request, Smith wrote, “The League of Towns, on behalf of the Bar Harbor (2,000 tons), Lamoine (840 tons), Ellsworth (3,000 tons), Southwest Harbor (500 tons), Trenton (60 tons), Tremont (400 tons), and Mount Desert (1,700 tons) are requesting bids for the total supply and delivery of approximately 8,500 tons of sodium chloride (rock salt) for the 2026/2027 winter season.”

Smith suggested passing the issue over to the public works directors to collaborate and determine how to make a joint bid work. Trenton Select Board Chair Fred Ehrlenbach suggested changing Trenton’s usage to 90 tons.

The League will revisit the salt bids for next year at its next meeting and tentatively go out to bid in July.

Dunbar will continue to chair the group.

The League of Towns quickly re-elected its slate of officers, January 27, and adopted the same budget that it had the previous year. This allows two elected official meetings throughout the year and also hazardous waste pick-up needs for residents via a collective event.

---

ELECTED OFFICIALS WORKSHOP AND LEAGUE OF TOWNS’ WEBSITE

There was no follow-up this meeting from the consulting group about the November elected officials’ workshop, but that is expected at the February meeting.

The League will continue to look to build and host a website.

The next meeting is February 24 at the Trenton Town Office. It will likely begin at 10 a.m.

---

Follow us on Facebook or BlueSky or Instagram. And as a reminder, you can easily view all our past stories and press releases here.