Information on Stone Canyon's Closure of Salt Production in Alberta
Mine in Lindbergh, Alberta
In August 2022, Windsor Salt's new owners, Stone Canyon Industries Holdings Inc., shut down a salt mine operation near the hamlet of Lindbergh, Alberta -- 235 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. This eliminated the jobs of 47 people but affected everyone in town because when the mine there opened in 1948, Lindbergh was set up as a company town. The hamlet was supplied with natural gas from wells at the mine, as well as electricity and water treatment.
The operation was built on top of a natural salt deposit that was found while prospecting for oil and gas. Through evaporation it produced table salt, water softener, agricultural salt (used to deliver vital trace minerals to livestock) and ice melt (used for melting snow and ice on roads and sidewalks) using a high-pressure brine solution. Once extracted from the wells, evaporation removes the water from the brine to produce high-purity salt similar to what is produced at the evaporation plant in Windsor, Ontario where workers are currently on strike. The products were used in Alberta and Saskatchewan, with some also going to Ontario.
Stone Canyon purchased K+S Americas Salt in 2021, which gave it ownership over the Lindbergh operations under the brand Morton Salt, which owned Windsor Salt. At the time Stone Canyon closed the Alberta line it said it was the result of "financial matters." It said that the facility was not "profitable" and announced its plan to tear down the closed building that housed the operations. However, the main issue was that the new owners did not want to make the investments necessary to upgrade the gas wells and equipment. Neither the company nor the government of Alberta cared a chit about the workers or the town.
The relations -- built up over the 74 years of operations -- including the building of the hamlet where many workers lived, were subject to destruction at the hands of Stone Canyon Industries Holdings Inc., in its global plans to consolidate the salt industry under its control. The likely aim was to flip the company to a new buyer, having eliminated parts that were deemed "unprofitable." Workers and their communities are turned into things that can just be disposed of as part of global schemes outside of their control.
The truth of the matter is that whether or not certain operations are profitable is not the main consideration when holding companies wreck production facilities and governments permit business decisions of large U.S. or other foreign cartels to decide the fate of Canadians. If they want to invest in Canadian natural resources it must be done in a manner that favours Canada and its workers and communities. Otherwise they should be asked to leave and their operations brought under the control of those who can make decisions which activate the human factor/social consciousness and uphold the aim of developing the economy for the public good, not nation-wrecking based on rapacious self-interest.
Lindbergh salt mine in 1949, a year after it started production.
(EmpowerYourselfNow.ca. Photos: V. Brooker, MacLennan family)
This article was published in
Number 15 - March 21, 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2023/Articles/WO10153.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca