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Weatherhead's Jonathan Ernest talks about the salt shortage in Northeast Ohio

MEDIA | March 12, 2025
STORY BY: EDITORIAL STAFF

We have salt mines. So why are we short on salt?
WEWSJonathan Ernest, assistant professor of economics at Weatherhead School of Management, discussed the salt shortage in Northeast Ohio. “We’d like to think of the supply as being pretty plentiful—having large salt mines right under Lake Erie, right off the coast here in Cleveland—but we also have to think of salt as this global market,” he said, explaining that even a region rich in natural salt deposits has to compete with other buyers, many of whom have experienced skyrocketing demand.