a year. The miners drill into the rock up to 800 metres underground. The core samples extracted from the mountain – in 3-metre sections – indicate where the salt deposits are located. “Drilling is our way of finding out about the deposit,” is how Arnaud Tamborini sums it up. A perforated nary use. The rest is used for gritting roads and for industrial purposes. The factory also has a storage warehouse with a total capacity of 12,000 tonnes: a salt mountain in a hangar. It seems a shame to throw all this salt on the ground. Swiss Saltworks has indicated that production volumes of table salt at Bex should increase in Switzerland’s most ancient monopoly The Swiss bought salt for cooking from Germany and France from the Middle Ages. Cheeses from Pays d’EnHaut, Gruyère, Emmental and the Alps were transported across the lake to Geneva and then down to Marseille. During the Renaissance, these cheeses were shipped all over the world. In the 17th century, a monopoly was established in the Swiss cantons and all European countries. The salt tax – known as ‘la gabelle’ – was a heavy burden on the people. “It was to combat these abuses from the Ancien Régime that countries decided to take over,” explains Geneva-based historian and economist Dominique Zumkeller. At Bex, saltwater springs were identified by goats. The first mention of these slightly salty waters dates from 1554. In 1685, Berne – an international power in those times – bought up all the region’s concessions to ensure its own supply. Bex was the first salt deposit discovered in Switzerland. It was inevitably going to be mined. In the latter half of the 19th century, industrial techniques made Switzerland self-sufficient in salt. Nowadays, the concepts of profitability and sustainable production remain the driving forces for the owners of Bex Salt Mines. Hence the building of a new hydroelectric station on the River Avançon, “which will enable an entirely green production process”, as Arnaud Tamborini is delighted to report. This hydroelectric power will produce all the energy needed to treat the brine via evaporation, a process that requires a lot of heat. The salt monopoly is going nowhere. (SH) A salt mine employee inspects the salt, which is still hot after the drying process. Keystone archive, 2010 ‘Sel des Alpes’ (Salt of the Alpes) – provenance is everything in the world of salt. Photo Pascal Wasinger the future, mainly for exports of the high-quality Sel des Alpes. Looking for salt in the ground is a risky business. Collecting the salt is a noble act. “When it leaves our premises, the salt sees the light again for the first time in 200 million years,” observes the white gold production manager at Bex. tube is then inserted into another pipe and placed in the borehole to go up through the vein. Source water is injected at high pressure, which dissolves the white gold, fills the pipe with salt and conveys it to the Bex production site. Only about 10 percent of the salt output at the Vaud site is for culi- “When it leaves our premises, the salt sees the light again for the first time in 200 million years.” Arnaud Tamborini, production manager at Bex Swiss Review / December 2023 / No.6 22 Report
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