A procession of 50-plus dump trucks snaked among mountains of road salt feet from the water’s edge at North Locust Point. Others positioned at the base of salt piles, ready to receive predawn deposits of more than 20 tons.

It’s a multimodal dance to get shiploads of salt from northern Chile’s Atacama Desert to wintry roads in the mid-Atlantic — and a key part of the choreography takes place at the Port of Baltimore in the sprint following a snowstorm.

The port imported 679,000 tons of salt in 2024, ranking second in the nation behind the port that serves New York and New Jersey. About 65% of Maryland’s imported salt comes from Chile and 20% from Mexico.

Most of Maryland, still digging out from more than 8 inches of snow and sleet, was asleep in the pitch black Thursday morning. But, amid pirouetting trucks and workers’ opaque breath in 5-degree weather, front-end loaders began scooping salt at 5 a.m. and dropping it into truck beds.

Once filled, dump trucks were weighed and deployed to surrounding counties and states to replenish salt coffers depleted by Sunday’s Winter Storm Fern.

Frank Williams, a truck driver readying for a couple of round trips to Virginia, arrived at the pier the night before, sleeping in a cot in his cab. Inside, he has a filing cabinet, thermoses — one each for hot water, coffee and iced tea — and a couple of Powerade bottles that double as an on-the-go bathroom.

Timing is crucial in logistics.

Williams was first in line when Canton Stevedoring, the company that operates the North Locust Point pier, opened. That enabled him to depart around 5:10 a.m., make his first Virginia delivery, return to the port and hit the highway again. He planned to visit a truck stop for fuel and a shower Thursday evening before sleeping at the facility, aiming to be first in line again at North Locust Point.

He transports sugar, fertilizer, mulch, sand, gravel and more. But after a snowstorm, he said, everyone wants the same thing.

“I’ve been hauling just salt,” he said during Thursday’s wee hours. “I’ll probably haul salt for the next two months.”

Salt can damage roads, and its runoff can harm the Chesapeake Bay. The state government has a living document, called a “salt management plan,” to decrease “adverse impacts of salt.” Still, its effectiveness in lowering the freezing temperature of water to roughly 20 degrees makes it a crucial safety tool.

It’s big business, too.

The State Highway Administration — which owns only a fraction of the roadways in Maryland — has contracts with four vendors and used more than 200,000 tons of salt last year, spending a little under $90 per ton (total: roughly $18 million). That stockpile came from domestic sources and Chile.

The vast majority of salt’s cost stems from transportation. Ships carry it through the Panama Canal to Baltimore, where it gets trucked to salt domes. There, local governments disperse it.

The state keeps its reservoir of salt in 87 facilities and prepared 1.6 million gallons of salt brine — a salt-and-water mixture — ahead of this winter season.

For a company handling salt, the days right after a snow or ice storm are like its Super Bowl.

Canton Stevedoring distributes salt 240 days a year but is busiest during the winter. It weighs four dump trucks at once, some heading in, others heading out, squeezing by one another in a sort of organized chaos. Front-end loaders cut into the gymnasium-size salt mounds, lifting their buckets and dumping into the truck beds.

Traffic controllers wave trucks to salt piles, and clerks bark over an intercom, “Order number!” as truckers weigh their loads. Inside the scale office, a placard reads “Salt Life.”

About 100 trucks can load up within an hour, company Vice President Tim Kassel said. He called it a “truck ballet.” As the heavy machinery and trucks darted among each other Thursday, they weren’t impeded by any snow on the ground.

“We’ve got plenty of ice melt,” Kassel said.

The salt heads as far as West Virginia and Richmond, Virginia. Once, in a pinch, Williams transported Baltimore salt to Maine.

Canton Stevedoring and another company, Rukert Terminals, handle the bulk of Baltimore’s salt. Their mounds of tarp-covered salt can be seen from highways year-round.

The North Locust Point pier operated by Canton Stevedoring is state owned and needs millions of dollars of investment. The company’s lease with the state was slated to end last year but was extended through 2026. Beyond that is unknown.

Kassel has argued that their operation, located west of the harbor, is positioned perfectly for swift distribution and that, without them, the salt supply chain would slow.

“I’ve seen Snowmageddon, I’ve seen Snowpocalypse,” Kassel said of prior blizzards. “The municipalities always scream, ‘How can we get more salt in?’”

Protracted negotiations, hinging on the needed repairs to the pier, have continued since last year. Extending the company’s lease remains an option, said Jonathan Daniels, the Maryland Port Administration’s executive director, as does reconstructing the pier or selling it.

“It is incumbent upon us to take a look at what is the best opportunity during very difficult budget times,” Daniels said.

Two hours after Canton Stevedoring’s doors opened Thursday morning, the sun first peeked over the salt mounds and the partially frozen harbor. Dozens of trucks whirred as the salt shuffle continued.

One hundred miles west, Williams had just dropped off his first load. He turned around and headed back to the Port of Baltimore, ready for more salt.