A giant rectangular cage lowered miner Kale Pitt and his hard hat from the desert of southwest Wyoming into the underground world of trona mining.
“Tiny light at the very bottom is where we're headed, a little over 1,600 feet [deep],” said Pitt.
Down there are remnants of Wyoming’s prehistoric subtropical past. This corner of the state was once crawling with alligators and turtles 50 million years ago. There was a giant lake, which helped form layers of trona – some of the world’s largest deposits.
It’s a white-ish, flaky, translucent mineral. Globally, many rely on Wyoming for it, because it goes into everyday things like windows, beer bottles, laundry detergent and deodorant.
On this day, Pitt helped pull back the curtain, showing a pair of reporters the downstairs of the operation at Tata Chemicals. The company, based in India, is one of four main companies mining trona in the Green River area.
The cage elevator clunked as it descended into the depths of the Earth. The air got warmer, and dust filled one’s eyes, nose and mouth. It got darker and darker, only lit up by Pitt’s headlamp.
Four minutes later, Pitt cranked the cage door open, revealing a room-temperature dark abyss.
“You guys ready?” Pitt asked.
Pitt walked through the mine tunnel, a rough two-track wide enough to fit a couple trucks. His tool belt jangled, adorning a wrench, padlock and radio.
“Safety meeting room. We have a lunch room, and then our shop foreman, his office sits here,” Pitt said as he pointed to little caves in the wall, left behind as they mine.
Lunch rooms, diesel and tire shop, and huge equipment – all of which came down on the elevator shaft. Pitt said they sometimes hang trucks vertically by the bumper.
It’s a mini world underground. And yet, very few know about trona mining, something Pitt related to.
“I didn't really know what it was ’til I moved here, actually, for a different industry,” he said.
Pitt came for coal, which is declining, while trona is doing pretty well. The end product trona is produced into, a fine white powder called soda ash, is Wyoming’s biggest export. It brings in about $1.5 billion annually, twice as much as coal.
In this mine, the walls, ceiling and floor shimmered with bits of trona crystal.
“Kind of has a hollow type sound to it,” Pitt said, tapping a few hand-sized pieces together.
The bulk of the mine tour was spent in a Jeep, which itself was wrapped in a thin layer of trona dust. The mine is about 16 miles long, so to get anywhere, workers drive. It takes about an hour to drive from one end to the other.
Even underground, normal road rules applied.
“I seen a light up ahead,” Pitt said. “I was trying to shut the lights off so that we don't blind the oncoming traffic.”
A little farther, he pulled up to another truck packed with a crew of miners coming off a 12-hour shift.
“You guys all good?” Pitt asked as he rolled down his window.
“You’re looking good in there,” the miners joked back. “You look as crammed up as we do. Have fun, we gotta go.”
Pitt continued down the dirt road, the Jeep’s suspension cushioning the bumps.
There are cross sections and little offshoot roads every which way. In fact, the total mileage of roads in the mine is the equivalent of 18 Laramies.
One intersection is even marked with an I-80 sign, as the actual interstate is just 1,600 feet above.
“It takes a few months to learn where you're at in the mine to navigate,” Pitt said, chuckling at the suggestion of Google Maps. “No, we don't have any GPS. We don't have phone service.”
That means on lunch break, there’s no checking in with family or scrolling social media. Pitt said they have mine radios to get ahold of each other and workers above ground for big things, like family emergencies and “Super Bowl scores.”
After a while, Pitt parks the Jeep to walk closer to the actual mining. It gets a lot louder, hotter and the air is dustier, thicker.
A few guys tinkered on equipment, getting ready to fire it up.
“Warning light is starting, they’re gonna start the panel up,” Pitt shouted over the machinery. “But we’ll have to leave our equipment here.”
Equipment like the audio recorder and phones. It's an explosive atmosphere, and adding more electronics to the mix is risky. Pitt said they have to be approved by MSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Pitt squeezed through a much narrower tunnel where a half dozen workers were hard at it. One guided a giant machine that chewed through the rock wall, spitting out chunks of trona that slid onto a conveyor belt. The belt will eventually bring the trona to the surface. Other workers focused on safety, drilling holes in the rock ceiling and inserting rods to keep it from collapsing.
Occasionally, the sludge they stood in bubbled up.
“Methane gas coming out of the floor,” Pitt explained. “A lot of times we'll see it in water. It'll start bubbling up out of water.”
When there’s too much gas, the equipment shuts down. Workers will guide a snakey tube that shoots in fresh air. Once the air is cleaner to breathe and less combustible, the mining equipment fires back up.
On this particular day, they’ll probably cut about 450 feet into the trona mine wall.
After peeking at the action, Pitt drove back out toward the cage elevator. But he stopped halfway there.
“We’ll stop right here,” he said. “One of the best places to do it.”
To be in total darkness. Pitt turned off all the lights.
“Stick your hand in front of your face,” he instructed.
It was impossible to see. All that was left was the distant hum of mining trona, 1,600 feet below Green River.
Stay tuned for another story this summer about what happens to trona above ground, and what’s in store for Wyoming’s biggest export.
