Rural homeowners face water-softener shortage due to Ontario strike
Plant strike has left thousands of people scrambling for water-softener salt
People who live in rural parts of Nova Scotia that have wells on their property are in a bind these days. Water-softener salt, which is used to treat hard water, is in hot demand because there is little of it at stores in the province.
"I've been looking for it for about three or four weeks," said Carol Morrison, who lives in Oakfield, a community about 30 kilometres north of Halifax.
Morrison said she is keeping a close eye on how much water she is using until she can secure more water softener.
"I take short showers, reduce the number of washes I do and really make sure the dishwasher is loaded right up before I run it through."
The reason for the shortage is a strike by employees at Windsor Salt in Ontario. It's one of Canada's biggest producers of water-softening salt and there is now a huge hole in the market. Other companies' shipments have been making it to some stores like Costco, but they are quickly snapped up.
This week, a pair of Home Hardware stores in Bridgewater, N.S., and Tantallon, N.S., teamed up on a shipment from another supplier.
"For at least three months it's been constant calls from customers asking if we have any of it," said Kathryn Foote, co-owner of Redmond's Home Hardware in Tantallon.
"We've heard from people who are really desperate to get it and they're from all over the place: Musquodoboit, Truro, Prospect, Porters Lake."
On Monday morning, Foote's store put out 1,400 bags and it wasn't long before they started quickly disappearing once word got out there was a new supply.
"With all the supply chain issues that we've had over the last couple of years it seems like new things just keep popping up," said Foote. "Because of the strike, Windsor Salt sold out of everything they had, and even once they get back to work it's going to take a while before the supply chain fixes itself."
Strike ongoing for 3 months
The Windsor Salt strike in Ontario is now more than three months long. Stone Canyon Industries, a company headquartered in Los Angeles, acquired Windsor Salt in 2021.
Windsor Salt does have a facility in Pugwash, N.S., but it only produces road safety salt. Morrison said it doesn't make sense water-softener salt isn't produced there.
"This is crazy, the stuff is mined here in Nova Scotia," said Morrison. "We really need to see it processed in this province because we have such a big rural population of people who have wells."
