Grand Junction to Host International Mining Conference
Grand Junction will be the host city for the International Solution Mining Research Institute’s Technical Conference April 25-28 at the DoubleTree Hotel. In previous years, this conference has been held in Krakow, Poland, Leipzig, Germany, and Switzerland. Approximately 200 people are expected to attend this year’s conference in Grand Junction; of those, nearly one third are traveling from Europe, with the remainder coming from locations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. One of the mining sites the group will visit during the conference is the Intrepid Potash Cane Creek Mine near Moab, UT.
Solution Mining Research Institute (SMRI) is a non-profit, worldwide organization with over 150 member organizations. They view solution mining as the process of mining underground, water-soluble minerals by dissolving the minerals with water (not by using acids). SMRI is primarily interested in the production of salt brine, but is also involved in solution mining of potash and soda ash. The caverns that are created as a result of solution mining are utilized as underground storage for oil, gas, chemicals, compressed air, and waste.
