{"id":148190,"date":"2026-03-25T16:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148190\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T16:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T16:49:19","slug":"beneath-lake-erie-a-vast-salt-mine-works-to-meet-winter-road-demands-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/148190\/","title":{"rendered":"Beneath Lake Erie, a vast salt mine works to meet winter road demands"},"content":{"rendered":"

By SUE OGROCKI, PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS and PATRICK WHITTLE<\/p>\n

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Below Cleveland, in a subterranean world many surface dwellers don\u2019t know exists, miners extract a crucial winter mineral \u2014 salt.<\/p>\n

The Whiskey Island salt mine, owned by food giant Cargill, helps supply road salt across the Northeast and Great Lakes, where a colder, snowier-than-usual winter<\/a> has driven demand. Many municipalities exhausted supplies that typically last through spring, said Cargill spokesperson Emily Tangeman.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur teams have been working overtime since September to support customers across the snowbelt,\u201d Tangeman said, noting that early, persistent winter weather boosted demand across the industry.<\/p>\n

The mine beneath Lake Erie, one of the world\u2019s largest, produces 3 million to 4 million tons annually, although that can fall short of demand in especially harsh winters.<\/p>\n

Located 1,800 feet underground, it\u2019s accessed from Whiskey Island, an industrial area on the shore right beside downtown Cleveland. The mine opened in the 1960s and operates year-round, with salt extracted by drilling and blasting through vast tunnels formed from an ancient inland sea that dried up millions of years ago.<\/p>\n

Inside, the mine is a maze of roughly rectangular caverns with chalky white walls and ceilings that extend for miles. It\u2019s dimly lit and often pitch-black beyond the glare of headlamps and floodlights. Heavy machinery and conveyer belts rumble as small ATVs whisk miners around.<\/p>\n

\"Salt<\/p>\n

Salt pillars, left behind for support during mining, line the tunnels in the Cargill salt mine in, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie on Whiskey Island in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki)\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The salt, formed 440 million years ago, is mucked up and loaded onto a conveyor belt 1,800 feet below Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki)\n<\/p>\n

\"Supervisor<\/p>\n

The absolute darkness of the mine is broken as supervisor Andrew Adkins uses a headlamp to look over a map of drilling sites at the Cargill Salt Mine, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie, in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki)\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A seagull flies past piles of the finished product, de-icing solution \u2013 rock salt \u2013 at the Cargill Cleveland salt mine on Whiskey Island before being distributed by truck, rail and boat to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana and Minnesota, in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 4<\/p>\n

Salt pillars, left behind for support during mining, line the tunnels in the Cargill salt mine in, 1,800 feet below the surface of Lake Erie on Whiskey Island in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

Maintenance superintendent George Campbell said operations are continuous, with downtime used for upkeep and repairs to keep production steady. Cargill said it is prioritizing shipments to ensure salt reaches the areas of greatest need as winter lingers in some regions. Frequent smaller storms also increase usage, Tangeman said, requiring repeated salting and creating logistical challenges.<\/p>\n

A return to harsher conditions<\/a> across the Eastern U.S. meant some cities \u2014 including Boston; Bangor, Maine; and Ithaca, New York \u2014 shivered through their coldest seasons in more than a decade. And winter weather is still not over in some parts of the country, so it\u2019s not over in the Cleveland mine, either.<\/p>\n

Campbell said there\u2019s still decades of salt left to be extracted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we have enough reserves to continue to keep people working for a long time,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By SUE OGROCKI, PATRICK AFTOORA-ORSAGOS and PATRICK WHITTLE CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) \u2014 Below Cleveland, in a subterranean world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[67512,76,136,138,137,260,19294,67513],"class_list":["post-148190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-cargill-mine","tag-cleveland","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-lake-erie","tag-road-salt","tag-whiskey-island-salt-mine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}