While it may be the dog days of summer, a few people are thinking about snow and the salt stockpiles needed to cope with it this winter.

They’re the municipal and state maintenance workers responsible for keeping Butler County’s roads safe and clear, and they’re always thinking big — as in hundreds of miles of road and thousands of tons of salt to battle the snow.

State Department of Transportation workers measure winter road work by “snow lane miles,” which there are about 1,800 in the county.

A snow lane mile is one mile of one lane of road in one direction.

PennDOT has a salt storage capacity of more than 10,000 tons, which is usually topped off in late August or early September, said Robert Skrak, PennDOT’s manager for the county.

The department’s district office operates under a three-year, state-pricing contract that allows it to refill its salt cache periodically during the winter based on weather conditions.

Skrak said lake effect snowstorms and freezing rain are the two types of winter weather that eat through salt storage the fastest.

Butler Township recently ordered 3,000 tons of road salt from Cargill — which also supplies PennDOT’s district operations — as superintendent of public works Thomas Knights continues preparations for winter maintenance on the 93 miles of township roads.

The township, still operating under last year’s state-pricing contract, is paying $67.60 per ton for road salt.

Knights said he expects a slight price increase this year, and he isn’t sure what to expect from the 2015-16 winter season.

In the past two years, he said, township officials have come “very close” to using their entire allocation of road salt.

“We’re just like the rest, hoping for the best,” Knights said.

In Center Township, secretary/treasurer Anthony Amendolea said last year’s winter racked up about $20,000 in overtime costs for road maintenance.

The township, which is responsible for 72 miles of roads and maintains 5,000 tons of road salt on-hand, has already replenished its cache through a state-pricing contract with North American at $68 per ton.

Cranberry Township, which can stockpile up to 6,500 tons of road salt, is at about three-quarters of maximum capacity, said director of public works Jason Dailey.

The township maintains about 120 miles of roads. But the township is slightly different from other municipalities, Dailey said, because of its snow management plan and its focus on using liquid brine to pretreat roads.

The township, which splits its salt contracts between state pricing and a regional government cooperative, averages a cost of about $65 per ton, Dailey said.

Skrak said state-pricing contracts are becoming more common at the township level, after a salt shortage several years ago resulted in salt vendors shutting down mid-season shipments to municipalities without contracts.

The downside, he said, is that proliferation has contributed to a rise in contract prices for road salt.

State and municipal officials all said they acquire ingredients for liquid brine road treatments separately from salt purchases, and the two don’t affect each other.

Skrak said it’s nearly impossible to predict the nature of winter weather or the amount of road salt that will be used.

“We have a baseline (use) that we try to achieve,” Skrak said. “But with salt, it’s kind of difficult to determine a usage level. Every storm’s different.”