Dirty Jobs

Mike visits one of the largest salt mines in the world. They are 650 feet underneath Hutchinson, Kansas where there are 4000 square miles of salt deposits. First is the safety meeting in the company office. Every visitor gets two identical tags. One is hung on the board and the other stays on the person. It is used for body identification in the event of a disaster underground. Mike has number V19.

After taking the elevator down, Mike meets Myron who pulls up in a '84 Pontiac Bonneville. It was taken apart and brought down piece by piece in the only elevator. The mine runs 2 and 1/2 miles from north to south.

They drive through the mine to get to the "face" - the undrilled area. Soy based bio-diesel fuel is used to help keep the air safe to breathe. Here they do "room and pillar mining". Pillars create rooms that are mined individually. Curtains control air flow to keep fresh air going toward the "face". A 125 horsepower fan pushes air down through the mine. Offshoots are called cross cuts.

Lewis shows Mike the double boom joy drill. There are 24 different levers on this machine. They are in front of a forty foot long wall of salt that is eleven feet tall. They drill 26 holes about 10-11 feet into the salt. Dan runs the undercutter so everything has a place to fall once they blow the place up.

Bruce is in charge of the demolition called powdering. First Mike has to pull down any loose salt with a stick. They then fill the holes with blasting caps and detonating cord. Mike pours 8 bags of the ammonium nitrate with fuel oil into a tank. It comes out through a pressurized tube that is inserted into each hole. About 325 pounds of the stuff is used. Fuses are then added to the detonating cord. The fuses have a delay of 4 minutes and 45 seconds.

The fuses are lit and the crew take off in the truck (except Dave who is running). Mike says goodbye to the expensive camera they delibrately left behind. The wall explodes and a cloud of smoke comes at them. They all have to run behind a curtain so they don't breathe in the smoke. They wait about 45 minutes for the dust to settle. The dust has nitrogen dioxide which forms an acid in your lungs if you breathe it. They inspect their $10,000 camera. The plexiglass is destroyed, but it appears to have saved the camera.

They have an LHD (loader, hauler, dumper) that picks up the salt. It is taken to a machine with giant bits that pulverizes the rocks. A conveyer belt is on the other side which goes three miles to another crushing system. It is then loaded topside and shipped out where it is then used on snowy and icy roads.