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but remains as vital to its very existence as ever.
But getting this all-important mineral out of the earth
and into our lives is no small feat.
It demands long hours, constant supervision.
> Ah [BEEP]
> And the tenacity needed to work in one of
America’s harshest environments.
> Yeah, there we go, we’re good now.
[MUSIC]
> For the past 8,000 years or so
salt has been one of society’s greatest assets.
Not just because our bodies require it to live,
but because its unique qualities are essential
to creating a lot of pretty handy products.
Like glass, meat, rubber, textiles,
and about half of all the chemicals we use.
That’s why every year the United States will produce
about 42 million tons of it.
Or enough to fill a string of railcars stretching
from the tip of Florida across Canada
to Northern-most Alaska.
And while a good bit of that will wind up on
tables across the country, the bulk of it by far
serves another purpose.
One that may well have saved your life by now.
Deicing roads.
This simple practice actually reduces
winter car accidents by 50 percent.
Many of which could be deadly.
And for America’s more northern states,
winter has already arrived.
> Many parts of the country are in the grip
of a brutal cold front.
> What we know now is it’s a monster.
What we don’t know is
how much snow it will leave in its wake.
> Almost overnight, thousands of miles of
roadways are in desperate need of salt.
Which means the demand for this precious mineral
is spiking in a big way.
Fortunately for us the 60-plus salt producers of
our nation are working overtime to fill that demand.
Including a facility in Southern New Mexico
known as United Salt Carlsbad.
Here a team of 75 workers can shovel,
process and ship off a thousand tons of salt per day.
But with that and more now needed in the north
they’re aiming to double their output
to a near uncanny 2,000 tons.
And all that starts with workers like this man.
Raul Flores.
> Gonna make our way out in the salt lake,
gonna do some ripping out with this powerful machine here.
[MUSIC]
> There are a number of ways to harvest salt.
From mining to laying brine out to dry.
But here in Carlsbad guys like Raul
harvest it from a 2,000-acre flat.
And a pretty old one at that.
Naturally occurring salt pans like this one
were once prehistoric lakes.
But over the course of about two million years
the arid climate evaporated it down
to a sheet of almost pure sodium chloride.
Which can be scraped directly from the earth’s surface.
But first it has to be broken up.
> What I am doing right now is using my ripper.
With the ripper in we’ll just move forward here
and make sure we got enough sump.
It looks pretty good.
Looks like we’re getting a fair amount of sump.
Just gonna keep on doing this.
> In all Raul will make 32 passes with the ripper
to loosen up a 100-foot strip of raw salt.
Then it’s time for phase two.
> I just finished my last pass here.
So we’re fixing to start pushing up.
We’ll start the wind row right here.
We’ll push some piles up as we go along here.
That’ll create our wind rows.
> A wind row is basically just the 100-foot-long
pile of salt.
Which Raul will draw from to fill trucks
bound for the production plant.
> We’re doing good so far.
We’re going into finish this third pass.
Then we’ll move on to the next pass.
> But on salt beds like these.
> Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
> Some areas, often called holes,
can be like quicksand.
[MUSIC]
> Ah.
Looks like our front tire is stuck.
We’ll have to call somebody.
Come and get me out.
[WIND]
> Whether it’s scraped from lake beds or chiseled
from underground tunnels or distilled from brine,
about 18 million tons of salt will be used on
icy roads across the country each winter.
And with the early cold front sweeping the north,
guys like Riley Smith are feeling the pressure
as much as anyone in the Carlsbad facility.
> The dependence on road salt to be able to help
create safer driver conditions for everyone,
is pretty essential.
So I got to make sure that, you know,
not only is everything running smoothly,
that everyone’s safe while doing it and
we’re getting the product that
we need to give to all our customers.
> As foreman of United Salt’s Lake Plant,
it’s Riley’s job to ensure that the American public
receives the salt that’s been harvested.
And none of the impurities that come with it.
Which means today he’ll need to wash
2,000 tons of salt to meet the spike in demand.
And all that starts with firing up
the facility’s water pumps.
> So right now we’re on our way to start the
first pump up for the wash plant.
We’re gonna get it going.
So we’re gonna turn on the master switch,
bypass and the start.
[MOTOR TURNING OVER]
[MUSIC]
Now we’re gonna activate the clutch,
put it in first gear.
[MOTOR PUTTERING]
Now we’re gonna let the thresher build up.
So we’re bringing water in from the lake,
using the pump.
And we’re sucking it up,
letting the pressure come into the valve.
What we’re looking for is the pressure to hit about
20 PSI so it’ll take over and go to the wash plant.
> Natural brine from the lake is salty enough to
rinse United’s product without dissolving it.
And with plenty of that now feeding into the
washing facility, Riley’s ready
to fire up the rest of the system.
[MUSIC]
> First thing we’re gonna do is start the stacking belt.
[BUZZ]
So now we’re gonna look for our stacking belt and
make sure it’s moving.
Now that we see it’s moving we’re gonna
start our flat belt.
Gonna turn it on, make sure it’s running.
See it moving up there.
Now that we got everything going
we’re gonna go start feeding it.
[MUSIC]
[VEHICLE]
> Each seven-ton bucket of salt will keep the washing
plant busy for a good two minutes.
Giving Riley just enough time
to talk us through the process.
> We’re up there pushing salt onto the grate.
Which goes to the crusher.
Which gets fed onto this belt.
And then it comes all the way across the belt
into this tank to be washed.
> But while giving the grand tour
Riley’s failed to notice an issue with the works.
> [BEEP] Tank’s overflowing so we’re gonna
take care of that.
[MUSIC]
[WATER RUSHING]
> There are a lot of things that can go wrong
on a typical day of salt production.
Mainly because it’s such an unforgiving material
to work with.
Especially when it comes to the machinery
that’s meant to move it.
That’s why United counts on guys like maintenance
manager Vince Goeke to keep all that
equipment running as it should.
And today that means making a critical repair
to one of the company’s nine loaders.
> We’re gonna be resealing the lift cylinder
on our 972 loader.
Install new seals on a cylinder that’s leaking.
We’ll get it back up, get it back to production
so they can keep running out here.
> Leaky cylinders are just one of the many
salt-induced issues that
Vince deals with on a daily basis.
And with more product to move than usual today,
fixing this loader is priority one.
> We’ll get it set up, get the bucket on the support track,
start getting everything ready to pull the cylinder out.
There you go.
Down a little on the front.
The reason we’re changing this out
is the packing here is leaking.
We’ll put new seals in it and get it up to
where it quits leaking.
[DRILL SOUND]
> For starters, Vince and his team will have to
remove the eight bolts holding the piston in place.
But in an environment here salt conspires to seize
everything in rust,
just doing that can be a challenge.
[MUSIC]
> There.
> You got it.
> Go ahead and try it.
[MUSIC]
Ready?
> Yeah.
> It broke.
[BEEP]
> While Vince and his team work on the stubborn bolts,
ten miles up the road at United Salt’s main processing plant,
operator Kelly Smith is firing up yet another system.
One designed to dry,
sort and store the freshly-cleaned salt.
> So now we can turn on the dryer.
> A propane dryer like this one can process
about 60 tons of salt per hour.
Before sending it off for sifting and storage.
But first it’ll need to be fired up.
[MOTOR WHIRRING]
> Well now that the fire’s going we can walk through
and check to make sure everything’s running good.
> Though larger in scale, this dryer works
a lot like your typical household appliance.
With a rotating cylinder tossing the salt
to ensure it’s evenly heated.
> So after the salt comes through the dryer
it’ll fall through the screen and into the hot screw.
So the hot screw will take the salt
and it’ll take it up to the production elevator.
And then...
oh [BEEP]
[MUSIC]
Oh.
It’s all dumping out the side instead of going up to the bin.
[WIND]