Cargill Salt
|
|
| The salt operations at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay are the largest, in area, in the country. Cargill (a privately held industrial conglomerate with 85,000 employees worldwide) owns all the salt operations on the bay, having bought the bay area's main salt producer, Leslie Salt, in 1978. Salt brine is shifted from pond to pond over a five year period, through a system of 40,000 acres of ponds, until it is saline enough that it grows as a crystal from the bottom of the crystallizing ponds (the ponds are often a deep red color because of an algae that grows naturally). It is then scooped up from the bottom of these ponds and is washed, ground, and packaged. Though Cargill owns the ponds and does the harvesting, some of the raw salt is sold and packaged by Morton Salt, which has a refinery adjacent to Cargill's. Morton and Cargill are also neighbors at the Great Salt Lake in Utah, another major salt production site. Outside the Southwest (where salt water can be evaporated) salt is generally obtained from salt mines, in Kansas, Louisiana, New York, and elsewhere. |
|
newark
(POINT(-122.02928781509 37.52033786791))
(show on map)
|
|
| CA |
|
| Cargill has been known to have annual open houses during the harvest season, during which the public is treated to tours of the plant and free samples of salt products. This practice seems to have stopped though, as they are busy preparing to sell some of the ponds, to help mitigate possible San Francisco airport expansions. To get to the plant from the east side of the Dumbarton Bridge take Thornton Avenue south to Willow Street south. |
|
http://www.cargillsalt.com/sfbay/
|
|
|
Industrial, Mining, Water
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
map |
search
|
|
|
|
