Monte Cali - salt mountain (4 photos + 1 video)

The city of Herringen in central Germany boasts a giant pile of sodium chloride, or, in a simple way, table salt. This the heap is so large that it has received its own name - Monte Cali. This is the most the world's largest artificial salt mountain.







The birth of Monte Cali dates back to 1976, when the mines around the city of Hesse, potash salt began to be mined. At that time, potash used to make soap and glass. Today it is important ingredient in fertilizers, synthetic rubber, and even some drugs, so over the past few decades, its extraction expanded. The problem is that during the extraction of potassium salt in a lot of sodium chloride is formed as a by-product, which must be stored somewhere. The company that runs the mines has begun dumping unwanted salt a few miles from Herringen, and over the years it created a giant salt mountain, which the locals called Monte Cali or Calimanjaro (a pun on Kalisalz, the German word for meaning "potassium").





As of 2017, the elevation of Monte Cali was 530 meters above sea level. The mountain covers an area of more than 100 hectares. Her can be seen from anywhere in Herringen. You can also drive past along the motorway. For the city, the mountain has become a real tourist attraction. attraction. Tourists are even willing to pay to climb to this giant salt dump as part of a guided tour. Climbing takes the average person about 15 minutes. From a plateau at the top of an area of 23 hectare overlooked the entire Werra valley up to the Rhön and Thuringian forest.

Although it is difficult to estimate how much salt went into creating Monte Cali, most sources estimate its current mass at about 236 million tons. The mountain covers an area of 114 football fields and weighs like 23,600 Eiffel towers. Given the fact that every hour in it more than 1000 tons of table salt are added - about 7.2 million tons per year - its growth can be called unprecedented.



Salt mountain of this size in the center of Germany, next to forests and the Werra River naturally raises questions from environmentalists. Studies have shown that a growing pile of salt, which forms a lot brine, caused Werra to become salty, as did the ground water in the area. Of the 60–100 species of invertebrates that once lived around Herringen, only three remain today.

It could be called an environmental disaster, but the potash industry in the region is of great importance, providing several thousand jobs, so shutting down production is not option for the government. In 2020, Kali und Salz (K+S), a company mine manager extended its license until 2060 and even approved a request to expand Monte Cali by 25 hectares.

K+S is still dumping more than 1,000 tons of sodium chloride on Monte Cali every hour. For this, from the place of work to Monte Cali is built belt conveyor 1.5 km long. At the same time, Monte Cali is only one, albeit the largest of several common salt dumps in region, which is known as "der Weissen Berge" - the Land of the White Mountains.