[rob74]

Yeah, never mind that it's a bad idea to have a mine under a lake, it's an even worse idea to authorize drilling for oil in the lake over the mine. I would love to read a report on how that came about. But apparently there's little hope to find that out: according to Wikipedia, "The Mine Safety and Health Administration released a report on the disaster in August 1981 which exhaustively documented the event but stopped short of identifying an official reason for the disaster."

[pfdietz]

Actually, salt mines are subject to collapse of the overlying rock, which can create sinkholes at the surface as the collapse propagates upwards. So putting them under lakes means you're not risking destroying someones home.

How do I know this? There's a major salt mine under Lansing, New York (just north of Ithaca) that's doing most of its expansion under Cayuga Lake for just this reason.

https://www.cargill.com/industrial/winter-road-maintenance/c...

(Cargill has another mine under Lake Erie, and deliberately flooded a mine in Louisiana recently. They're trying to get out of the salt mining business, though.)

There's a freight spur line on the west side of Ithaca that is the sole remaining rail connection to the city. Its sole purpose these days is carrying salt from that mine (it used to also carry coal to a power plant up the side of the lake, but that plant was shut down.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca_Central_Railroad

[red-iron-pine]

huh used to swim in that lake during summer camps. kinda miss the Ithaca Commons, too, but it's been a while.

[fredgrott]

Salt mines are under lakes as anyone in the state of LA due numerous disasters in that state due to salt mines under lakes.