County To Build Salt Barn on Hospital Road

County Public Works crews are expected to have a new storage facility built in town to store road salt to help combat the effects of winter storms, according to a release.

Monmouth County expects to build a salt barn on existing county property large enough to accommodate 5,000 tons of salt. The Board of Freeholders on March 10 voted to award a $449,823 contract to Neptune-based Cypreco Industries Inc. to build the facility, according to the release.

The facility will be built on the county’s Highway District 4 property on Hospital Road, the release says.

“Towns are saving tax dollars by not incurring the capital and engineering costs of building their own salt storage facilities,” Freeholder Deputy Director John P. Curley, said in the release. “Towns will also save on the costs of de-icing materials by not having to stockpile salt. Instead, the county will supply it on an as-needed basis.”

The new storage building also will assist the county and municipalities in complying with the new state Department of Environmental Protection stormwater regulations, Curley said in the release.

Freeholder Thomas A. Arnone in the release said the arrangement is part of an overall strategy of reducing costs by sharing services.

“Taxpayers at both ends clearly benefit by sharing these costs, and we must do more of it,” Arnone said in the release.