Salted Away

Source

Down East

Date

12-2021

Pages

90-97, 104, 106

Abstract

Feature piece on the rock salt used on Maine's roads every winter. Each year, half a million tons of rock salt are shipped to Maine from mines in central Chile's Atacama Desert where salt flats cover more than a thousand square miles. Morton Salt is one of the state's primary suppliers. Ships carrying the salt arrive year-round at the Sprague Energy shipping terminal in Portland where longshoremen work 12-hour shifts to get the salt transferred to trucks. The author briefly discusses the impacts of salt on the environment and on infrastructure and how highway workers try to gauge how much salt is needed. The state has adopted some tactics for limiting the environmental impact.

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