and Down the Street ; oO | Utah Salt Shipment | Heralds a New Era By Robert W. Bernick | Tribune Business Editor | Shipment of salt from Great Salt Lake to the ‘pharacole “shduairies of the Pacific Northwest has. commenced from new ponds of Solar Salt Co., it was announced Monday.. This epochal event could be dawning of a new day and an ex_pansive future for salt bipeedcn. in Utah. Since pioneer vo for more than a century—salt sales from ponds on the great lake have been totally restricted to the Intermoun- tain Area because of economic factors involving transportation costs. On hand for the start of the ee eventful shipments were F. C. Shana-, Mr. Bernick - man, Tacoma, Wash., president of Solar Salt Co. and president of the Washington division of | Pennsalt Chemicals Corp., as well as other executives and | area business leaders. Solar Salt is a jointly controlled subsidiary of Pennsalt and Hooker Chemical Corp., New York City. The two parent firms have put. about one million dollars into plant and pond development - peated between Grantsville and Stansbury Island. AS IT TOOK APPROXIMATELY three years to lay the 18-inch, hard-salt foundation for the ponds, this fall marked the first major harvest at the new facilities for Solar Salt Co. An even bigger harvest is. scheduled’ for 1960 at the 10 ponds which have a total capacity, depending on the evaporation season, of between 160, 000 to 200,000 tons of salt annually. AS A STATE, UTAH produces around 220,000. tons of salt, virtually all of it from the Great Salt Lake. Mr. Shanaman told The Tribune that the 18,000 acres owned by Solar Salt could, if developed into ponds, Se more than one: million tons of |sales a _ ne of thé ‘Waited Stites nae eee some. state at present produces only a little more of in nation. all the salt consumed this But 1 iH eet ie than 1% per cent THUS IT Is APPARENT that the future of salt ence tion in Utah for industrial and chemical -use on the West Coast is very largely dependent upon the future rates that major railroads will charge to haul the salt to the coastal areas, There’s market for some 600,000 tons a year of chemical grade salt alone in the chlorine-caustic soda. producing in- dustry around Tacoma, Wash. (Both the chlorine and soda are utilized in wood- -paper processing industries.) TOTALLY, THE WEST COAST states consume seat 800,000 tons a year of chemical grade salt at present. Depending on the freight rate situation, it is possible that Solar Salt will move more than 100,000 tons of salt from | the 1960 harvest to the chemicals industries around Tacoma. , But the potential sales of salt on the coast may be compared with the level of salt production at present on the lake. It is estimated that about 250 persons are employed in Utah’s salt industries with production rate of 220,000 tons annually. |. ae WERE OUTPUT TO BE tripled in the years. ahead, pie ployment as well as royalties to the state (10 cents a ton) would increase substantially. Although the Pennsalt-Hooker program has been directed mainly at. providing an inland reserve of chemical-grade salt, Solar Salt is producing some 23 varieties of ‘salt—including table salt. marketed to bakeries and creameries but net Ot on tetail level for home consumption. eR aka satS SLT IAE) Dera A UNIQUE AND inexpensive salt harvesting machine has been developed by the firm, permitting harvest of around four inches of salt annually from each pond. A. Z. Richards, 3 vice president, and F. C. Richards, operations manager, Solar - Salt Co., also have invented and placed in use a “salt washing” machine which further upgrades the product from the ponds. The firm also sells salt in the coasta areas for industrial | and manufacturing uses—including packing, ice production and fisheries, canneries, meat the like. ne EFFORT by Hooker and Pennsalt THE PIONEERING in pond development and West Coast marketing has resulted in other producers on Great Salt Lake finding markets for industrial salt grades on the coast. __ Elements of competition among salt producers also. have increased in this area. been : : It is the view of the Solar Salt executives that pisduction | of. chlorine and caustic soda from salt at Great Salt Lake must |ae await the development in this area of industries those chemicals. ‘Tacoma. - Pennsalt | NO major wood ae processing in this. sales would have to be meee. to some chemicals complex. officials participatin + in ‘Monday’ s events: M. McCullough, | Gibbs, Salt Lake Cit W. Cooper Willits, Philadelphia, Fa, SERRE? a A, Chemicals See . also was a Biase AS THERE 1S region, presumably i ga -be-established ‘Other Solar Salt included Lauren W.