Salt Production: Rock Salt Mining

On innumerable social occasions, I've found myself describing in detail the 1980 Lake Peigneur, LA, disaster when an errant Texaco oil-drilling crew, drilling underwater, pierced the side of a salt mine, flooding it and emptying the lake. The wound to the mine was mortal, but the salt miners were so well drilled in emergency evacuation that all 55 miners escaped without injury. You can see the action unfold on YouTube.

So it makes perfect sense that Louisiana salt miners take seriously efforts by mine managers to maintain readiness for mine disasters. Thus, the headline in yesterday's Daily Iberian (New Iberia, LA) was eye-catching, but unsurprising: "Mine Stages Disaster." No, it wasn't an insurance scam. It was a full-scale drill by Cargill Salt's Avery Island mine. Drills like this are why salt mine rescue teams regularly dominate national competitions among various mine rescue units which compete annually, recognizing that competition heightens not only skills, but awareness.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:49 AM | Permalink

The U.S. Department of Labor has just released the 2006 Metal & Nonmetal Fatal Accident Review. The positive news is that 2006 experienced the lowest number of fatalities on record- 18 mine employees and 7 contractors for a total of 25. The bad news is that all of these accidents were preventable. No surprise to anyone that more than half of all fatalities involved the maintenance crew. What was a surprise was the fact that fully 1/3 of fatalities involved mine workers that had between 10-15 years of experience.

The majority of fatal accidents have these common characteristics:

1) Failure to identify hazards, and 2) Failure to manage risks

The key root causes were:
 No Risk Assessment Conducted
 No/Inadequate Policy or Procedures
 Did not use Personal Protective Equipment
 Lack of Pre-operation Checks
 Equipment not Maintained
 Training Inadequate
 Failure to Conduct Examinations

Let’s use this information to guide our way to making 2007 an even safer year!

Posted by Mort Satin at 04:47 PM | Permalink

Whether biodiesel is to soybeans what ethanol has become for corn may depend on how biodiesel producers respond to quality control problems that were irritating last winter and may produce an explosive backlash as cold weather returns this month. As the St. Paul, MN Pioneer-Press reports "Wide Spread Biodiesel Problems Feared."

Biodiesel is being used in some rock salt mines to minimize diesel particulate to meet new MSHA regulations. Fortunately, underground operating conditions are immune to the challenges of surface winter weather.

So it remains to be seen whether soybean producers will have this expanded market -- and for us consumers, whether biodiesel competition will do for our tofu prices what ethanol did to increase corn demand and hike beef prices.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 05:25 PM | Permalink

It seems everybody wants to visit a salt mine. Small surprise, that. Cargill Deicing Technology is capitalizing on that interest to earn some valuable industry PR as this article in today's Cleveland Plain Dealer shows.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:24 AM | Permalink

Scheduled to open by the end of the year, the Kansas Underground Salt Museum in Hutchinson, KS, is booking sneak preview tour visits of the stll-under-construction exhibits 500 feet below ground. Got yours?

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:58 AM | Permalink

Salt miners in the remote village in western India are the beneficiaries of a Microsoft grant that the miners use to track the quality of the salt they extract so they can better price their product, according to a June 28 story released by the World Resources Institute, "Microsoft Extends a Helping Hnad to India's Salt Miners."

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 12:08 PM | Permalink

MSHA's 2006 National Metal and Nonmetal Mine Rescue Contest was held last week at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, featuring 33 mine rescue teams. Judged third Best All-Around Team was Morton Salt's team from its Week's Island, LA mine. Congratulations!

Mine rescue competitions are designed to test the knowledge of rescue teams who might be called upon to rescue their colleagues trapped following real mine emergencies. Teams must solve a hypothetical mine emergency problem, such as a fire, explosion or cave-in, and are judged on accuracy and speed.

Posted by Dick Hanneman at 10:47 AM | Permalink