Development of a water balance model for assessing and improving the site water management practices at the Goderich Salt Mine

Compass Minerals’ Goderich salt mine is the largest underground salt mine in the world. The mine is located 1,800 feet under Lake Huron, Ontario, producing rock salt for winter deicing and for making plastics, detergents, disinfectants and other important products. Fresh water is withdrawn from the municipal water supplies and used for the surface and underground operations, such as equipment cleaning. The mine aims to improve the current water management practices, with specific goals of limiting the amount of fresh water required to be delivered to the surface operations and the underground workings and developing waste water management protocols. The main method to achieve this is to build a site water balance model to assess the current water management practices. This model will be used to identify areas of improvement.

Faculty Supervisor:

Wenying Liu;Nadja Kunz;Jongho Lee

Student:

Partner:

Compass Minerals Canada Corp.

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing; Mining

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: