On the evenings of March 10th and 17th 30 members of the NEO-AWS toured the Morton Salt Mine for three long tenebrous hours. The tours were guided by Herbert Overstreet and Mary Ellen Able of the Morton Salt Co. Herbert, or "the herb" as he called himself, informed us the salt mine has been operational for almost 50 years and there are still several hundred years of salt to be mined. To understand the immensity of the mine, he informed us that there is more salt in this mine than in the entire Atlantic Ocean.

The AWS members went down into the mine using an elevator which required several minutes to reach a depth of 2000 feet. After passing through an air pressure room, we hurtled about the mine in a trailer being pulled by a tractor. The mine extends 2 miles under Lake Erie with numerous tunnels crisscrossing throughout the underground complex.

The tour consisted of seeing workers drilling holes into walls of salt, holes soon to be filled with an explosive known as "ANFO" or Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil. We also observed loaders carrying salt to the crushers, salt crushers, and conveyors filling large containers with 17 tons of salt; these containers then chugged their way up to the surface. We went through miles of tunnels, pausing occasionally to gaze at the heavy equipment or paw through limpid chunks of crystalline salt.

Along the way, we learned about the hundreds of pieces of equipment scattered throughout the mine, all of which had to be lugged in using elevators about 4' wide x 8' long x 8' high. So, how do they get huge earthmoving equipment down into the mine? Answer. Piece by piece. The huge earth moving equipment has to be disassembled and sometimes cut into pieces on the surface and then reassembled in the mine.

The tour was fantastic and we are thankful to The Morton Salt Co for allowing us to tour the facility. We also are thankful to our tour guides: Herbert Overstreet and Mary Ellen Able.