The salt dome at Weeks has been mined for salt by solution mining, as well as mechanically, with people excavating the material underground. In the 1970s, Weeks was selected as a location for the $4 billion federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The mechanically-excavated salt mines, with 70 foot-tall rooms separated by pillars of salt, had steel doors installed, then was flooded with 72 million barrels of crude. The chambers collapsed however, salt water got in, and the government moved its operations elsewhere in the 1990s. Dow Chemical’s Advanced Materials division also operates facilities at Weeks, adjacent to former Morton Salt operations.
