Old Palatine salt storage facility to be leveled for new dome

Palatine took the first step toward more than doubling their road salt storage capability Monday night when the Palatine village council approved a contract to demolish the current facility.

The village will pay an East Dundee-based contractor just under $22,000 to break down and haul out the dome that has housed the Public Works Department's salt since 1991.

Public Works Director Matt Barry said the current facility holds less than a third of the 6,000 tons of salt the village goes through in a typical winter.

Barry said although it's footprint will not be much bigger than the current storage building, the new facility will be able to hold twice as much by using a more efficient storage method.

After it is delivered, the salt will run on a conveyor belt from the ground up to the top of the dome-shaped roof and drop down into the large 4,000 ton pile within.

"Now, the salt is dumped on the pavement in front of the structure, pushed in and stacked up," Barry said. "It's not as efficient. You're handling the material multiple times and you can't get as much storage because you are basically trying to make it into a pile."

Barry said the new facility still won't be big enough to store as much salt as the village typically needs - to do so would be much more expensive than the $500,000 the village has budgeted.

The salt storage dome is behind the Combined Services Facility at 148 W. Illinois Ave., which is used by the village and the Palatine Park District.

Fans of explosions will be disappointed, since Barry said the contractor will not use dynamite in the demolition of the dome.