Money is scarce, and certainly is not there to replace the investments made in more hopeful years. Salt has been precipitated through rainfall through millions upon millions of years. Salt is brought over the land from the fine aerosol spray thrown up from the oceans. Each little aerosol droplet is capable of seeding a raindrop. But whereas most countries of the world have significant mountain ranges, well formed drainage channels and fast flowing rivers to carry the salt back to the sea, Western Australia is almost flat.
Drainage is sluggish.
Water lies around close to the surface and is rapidly evaporated by the blazing sun and drying winds of the long arid summers. This leaves the salt in the ground, often concentrated near the surface. When Western Australia was first settled and explored, vast salt lakes were discovered in the interior. Lake Deborah provides a source of high purity salt for a company working out of Fremantle. This company excavates 120,000 tonnes of salt a year from the evaporation ponds of Deborah.