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Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean |
Why is the water pink?
For the same reason that flamingos are
As you drive south past the
great dive sites on Bonaire's double reef you're greeted by
huge ponds of bright pink, green and brown water. These are
the ponds of the Cargill Salt Company's extensive solar salt
facility. Using the combined power of wind and sun, the
company can produce up to 500,000 tons of cleaned, sorted
salt crystals per year. Sun and wind do the
work Bacteria create the
effect Flamingos start out
gray Harvesting the
salt Cargill also maintains Pink
Beach as a resource for all of Bonaire and its visitors to
relax, dive and snorkel.
The year-long process of salt extraction starts when
seawater flows into the shallow ponds on the Southeast
corner of Bonaire. Cargill uses a system of pumps and
windmills to move the water from pond to pond as the
salinity increases. Sun and wind evaporate the water and the
concentration of salt increases from 3% to 26%. At this
point the salt begins to form crystals.
As the salt concentration climbs, the color of the water
begins to change. Seawater is essentially colorless but soon
algae begin to bloom and the water takes on a green color.
At higher salt concentrations the population of algae shifts
and the newcomers turn the water a brownish color. At this
point pink, halophilic (salt loving) bacteria begin to bloom
and it is billions of these tiny organisms that create the
startling pink color seen in the ponds. The background of
this page is an actual photograph of the water in one of the
final crystallizing ponds.
Small shellfish that live at the bottom of the ponds eat
the bacteria and, in turn, flamingos eat the shellfish. This
is the source of their color. Baby flamingos are gray and
only develop their characteristic color when they dine on
these tiny pink creatures. Cargill manages 135 acres (about
55 hectare) of wetlands within its complex as a flamingo
sanctuary. Here the flamingos build their nests and raise
their young.
Once the water is almost gone it's time to harvest. The
ponds are drained and huge loaders scoop the salt into
gigantic 40-ton trucks. The trucks carry the salt to the
washing and sorting station where it is rinsed and sorted by
size. It's then transferred via conveyor belt to the
stackers which hurl it in enormous streams onto the storage
platform to drain. As the crystals dry the piles of salt
become the familiar white hills that are visible from much
of the island. Finally,
the salt is conveyed over the coast road to the salt pier
(another great dive site) and loaded onto ships for
transport to the world's markets where most of it is used
for industrial purposes.
salt crystallizes in these pink ponds and is harvested
after washing and sorting
giant stackers pour the salt into cone-shaped
mounds
the dried salt is
loosened by bulldozers
so it can be ...
moved to the
conveyer belt and
carried over the road ...
to ships that take the salt around the world
and in the midst of all this, the flamingos breed
peacefully
Cargill Salt Bonaire N.V.
E.E.G. Boulevard 117
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Jong Bonaire 2001
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