Rocking demand for road salt revives southern N.B. mine
Crews return to the deep salt deposits near Sussex
Deep in the gut of the Picadilly Mine near Sussex, workers once laid off when potash prices shrank, are back underground, trying to keep up with the soaring demand for road salt to be spread on New Brunswick highways this cold and icy winter.
Veteran miners, including those who left the Sussex area of southern New Brunswick for other jobs, have returned to work 10 and 12-hour shifts nearly one kilometre below the Earth's surface, in a moonscape world of industry that many thought had long ago been shuttered.
The ride to work is a two-minute descent in an industrial elevator that drops at a rate of 1,500 feet per minute or about half a kilometre per minute.
When the doors open, the view is breathtaking. It feels like stepping onto the dark side of a rocky planet that sparkles in the head lamps.
The glint and shimmer everywhere — the white crystals floating in space — are caused by the dust of salt-mining.
"We can't make it fast enough," said Doug Doney, general manager of the mine.
"We've already set a record for February for volume sold. It will be the highest month ever. We'll be over 100,000 tonnes this month."
More than 80 people are now on the payroll, the highest number since 2016, when 430 people lost their jobs.
The announcement had been shocking in its day, especially because the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan had just spent six years and $2 billion building the mine.
But when potash prices retreated from $297 US per tonne in 2014 to a low of $206 US per tonne in 2016, the company said it would focus on its lower-cost operations and vast reserves in Saskatchewan.
Workers scattered to find new employment and some moved to Saskatchewan.
Harry Booth said he considered moving, but he was raising his kids in Sussex, and he had aging parents to consider.
He tells bits of the story as he drives three kilometres into the tunnels that twist and turn in the darkness.
Along the way, he stops the truck and tugs on heavy ropes that activate heavy doors. They help protect the air pressure and the ventilation system that ensures clean air flows into the mine and exhaust goes out.
Doney, who started mining in 1981 and is due to retire in May, knows every nook and cranny in this maze.
The salt here was laid down over millennia, he explained, and is intertwined with other evaporite deposits, including potassium salts or potash.
Geologists say it all began about 340 million years ago, when climate change caused glaciers to melt and oceans to rise and flood inland.
Cycles of thaw and freezing caused ancient seas to expand and retreat and with every evaporation, more salt was left behind. In some places, the layers of salt are tens of metres deep.
"It's very clean," said Doney, proudly holding up a rock of salt and shining a light through it. "In excess of 98 per cent NaCl [or sodium chloride]. Some of our samples come back at 99.6 per cent. It's very pure.
"The impurities don't help when you're trying to dissolve salt. The higher the purity, the lower the temperature at which it will work. So you really want the cleanest, best grade for the people who run the spreaders off the back of their trucks."
This banner year of production stems from a contract signed in 2019. By that time, PotashCorp had folded into a new company called Nutrien, which cut a deal with the province to provide the Department of Transportation with about 180,000 tonnes of road salt a year.
Other salt users in the province such as municipalities, schools and hospitals could also purchase salt through the government's contract.
Some of the most senior miners had to spend months re-engineering the mine.
Every massive piece of equipment had to come down the shaft in pieces and then be reassembled. Kilometres of conveyor belts had to be built to move the salt along.
In one tunnel, or stope, mining machine operator Jeff Lackie described how happy he is to be home again. He said he drove all the way to Saskatchewan and worked there four months before getting a call to return.
Doney said many more miners would be happy to have the same opportunity, and they may get a chance.
"We've got a number of employees here that are between 60 and 70 years old," he said.
Doney said he still loves the job, and miners do look out for one another.
"Our employees are very proud of what they've been able to do," he said. "I think that shows."
Perhaps surprisingly, crews say they do remain hopeful that one day potash mining will return to its former glory in New Brunswick, even if that's decades away.
In 2018, after running the mine with a minimal crew working on care and maintenance, the company announced it was closing the mine for good and took a $1.8 billion US write-down on the value of this asset.
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