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Article: Salt mining is light in recession's dim tunnel
- Article from:
- AP Worldstream
- Article date:
- March 18, 2009
- Author:
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A thick seam of salt courses 1,300 feet (400 meters) beneath the rolling farmland of Livingston County, almost as far down as the World Trade Center stood tall. Extracting the crystalline commodity for de-icing roads has been a solid livelihood for five generations and, these days, it's a steady lamplight in the dim tunnel of recession.
Families here trace their histories with the mines' ups and downs, but few have known tragedy and triumph like that of Joseph Bucci.
His grandfather, Nicholas, an immigrant from Italy in 1901, employed a shovel and a mule. His father, Joe, a GI Bill beneficiary after World War II, rose to chief engineer of the largest salt mine in the ...