Will NJDOT run out of road salt again this winter?

New Jersey Department of Transportation crews have been out and about quite a lot lately, battling Old Man Winter and spreading lots of road salt.

Nevertheless, DOT officials insist the state is not in any danger of running out of road salt like in 2014.

"Our storage capacity for road salt is about 165,000 tons, and this year we are definitely in better shape at this time than we were last year," said Kevin Israel, DOT spokesman. "Right now, we're at about 53 percent statewide. That's kind of a moving target, as they like to say here, as we're putting down salt and constantly taking deliveries on more salt."

Israel said the road salt shortage New Jersey had last year was highly unusual, because we were hit by so many storms and when the towns and counties ran out of salt, they came to the state DOT.

"Last year, we used 496,000 tons of salt -- we almost used 500,000 tons of salt," he said. "We don't foresee that happening this year, but we're keeping an eye on it."

It's impossible, Israel said, to estimate how much salt will be used per storm, because every storm is different. Sometimes a storm will linger, and sometimes it'll move more quickly than forecast.

"It really varies depending on the storm," he said. "You really can't estimate what you're using per event."

According to Israel, the DOT currently has about 80,000 to 90,000 tons of road salt on hand, which should be fine for the time being.

"That's a good spot for us to be," he said. "We have plenty of salt for the next few winter events that could be coming down the road, so we're comfortable with where we are right now."