Boise — Nu-West Industries, doing business as Agrium Conda Phosphate Operations, has filed a request with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ) for an air quality permit to construct an open pit phosphate mine in Caribou County that would extract three million st of ore. The proposed Lanes Creek Mine would be located on the eastern slope of Rasmussen Ridge, about 25 miles northeast of Soda Springs. It is an inactive phosphate mine proposed for re-development. The North Rasmussen Ridge Mine is now Agrium’s sole source of phosphate in southeastern Idaho. Mining at Agrium’s Dry Valley Mine ended in May 2011. The phosphate reserves are contained within a J.R. Simplot Co. lease and on private land owned by Bear Lake Grazing Co. Nu-West would take over the lease. The mine would operate for about four years, from the fall of 2013 to the spring of 2017. Reclamation activities would ensue from 2017 to 2019. No ore crushing or smelting are planned. Mining will be consistent with Agrium’s other open pit operations. After it is drilled and blasted, the rock would be loaded onto tractor trailer trucks and hauled about 30 miles via county and private roads to Agrium’s Wooley Valley Tipple site for transportation to its Conda processing plant. A network of access and haul roads would be developed on the lease.
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