That’s a sizable amount of salt, but the New Jersey Department of Transportation needed all of it (in this case supplemented by 122,120 gallons of liquid calcium chloride) to “make winter travel as safe as possible on the 13,341 lane-miles of interstate, U.S. and state routes under its jurisdiction.” The liquid calcium chloride is sprayed on the rock salt to increase its ability to melt ice and snow.

The total cost of salt and liquid calcium chloride for winter 2022–2022 was $27.5 million.

In order to track road conditions and direct resources where they’re most needed, the NJ DOT maintains 41 remote roadway weather sensing stations that provide detailed information on weather and road conditions, including air temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction,  and temperature of road and bridge surfaces.

The department stashes its salt in 70 storage facilities statewide. Total capacity for all facilities is 332,000 tons — 76,000 tons in north Jersey, 86,000 tons in the central part of the state, and 70,000 tons in South Jersey. Another 100,000 tons is distributed to smaller facilities. The DOT also stores 1 million gallons of liquid calcium chloride and other ant-icing agents.

A hard winter drives up the amount of rock salt and other chemicals the department must deploy, driving up the cost of keeping the roads safe. During the 2021–2022 winter, the DOT spread 238,480 tons of rock salt and went through 427,180 gallons of anti-icing liquid. Total cost: $78 million.