He's worked here for 22 years. Every day you come to work, you know, and you're underneath Lake Erie. Quite a bit of time, there were fishes swimming through here, you know, and now it's being mined out for rock salt for highways. Everybody wants to know what you do. Mine safety is carefully monitored at the Cleveland Salt Mine.
Huge fans direct fresh air into the farthest working sections and blow exhaust gases back out.
Miners use other machines to scale loose salt from roof and walls to prevent rock falls. As in any mining operation, workers brace the roof with bolts spaced a few feet apart. But Wilczynski says salt is different. Salt always has a small amount of movement to it. It's almost impossible to stop, because it's kind of an elastic type of rock.