The US Bureau of Land Management violated federal environmental laws when it approved a plan by P4 Production LLC, a subsidiary of Bayer AG, to develop an open-pit phosphate mine in Idaho, and the agency’s decision must be vacated, a federal court ruled on June 2.
The US District Court for the District of Idaho had ruled in January that the BLM violated the National Environmental Protection Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act when it issued a final environmental impact statement and 2019 record of decision for the Caldwell Canyon Mine Project (GM Jan. 27, p. 1).
The Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, and WildEarth Guardians sued the agency, alleging that it did not take a hard look at potential selenium pollution from the Caldwell Canyon Mine (GM May 20, 2022), nor did it consider the mine’s impacts on the threatened greater sage grouse. The plaintiffs asked the judge to vacate the approval as a result.
On June 2, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the statement and record should be vacated, Bloomberg Law reported. The opinion by Judge B. Lynn Winmill rejected the BLM’s argument that its decision should just be remanded without being vacated.
Winmill said the standard the BLM applied when assessing the project’s impact on the habitat of the greater sage-grouse population wasn’t as strict as the currently applicable standard, which calls into question whether the BLM can reach the same decision on remand, Bloomberg Law reported. The BLM also did not take a requisite hard look at the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of the project on the sage grouse, Winmill said.
The judge also ruled that BLM failed to consider the indirect effects to public health by sending the phosphate rock to be processed at the Soda Springs plant, which would produce the herbicide glyphosate for use in Roundup products. The plant was listed as a Superfund site in 1990.
According to Winmill, the BLM tried to avoid the seriousness of its violation by attributing the concerns about human health and environmental impacts to historic processing activities at the plant and not current operations. But “simply stating that no further analysis is necessary because the harm is from historic practices ignores the problem contained with the FEIS,” Winmill said.
P4 Production argued as intervenor that vacating the BLM’s approval would cost its parent company more than $3 billion, Bloomberg Law reported. But P4 failed to establish that those are concrete losses, Winmill said, adding that the calculations were “vague and conclusory.”
The BLM and P4 also failed to demonstrate that equity demanded a more tailored remedy than vacatur, Winmill said.
BLM approved the Caldwell Canyon Mine in August 2019 (GM Aug. 16, 2019) after issuing a final environmental impact statement three months previously. The project is designed to develop three leases on Schmidt Ridge in Dry Valley, about 13 miles northeast of Soda Springs.
P4 argued that the mine is crucial and is needed for the company’s elemental phosphorus plant operations near Soda Springs, formerly owned by Monsanto Inc. Company officials said the Caldwell Canyon Mine would sustain about 185 mining jobs and 585 plant jobs for about 40 years, and would aid the region by providing $47 million annually in payroll, taxes, royalties, and purchases, as well as sustaining support and service jobs.
P4 would use mining methods at the Caldwell Canyon Mine similar to those used at the company’s Blackfoot Bridge Mine. Work would begin in time to transition from the Blackfoot Bridge Mine near the Blackfoot River, where ore is projected to be depleted in less than seven years.
In total, mining and support facilities would disturb about 1,559 acres – 153 acres of BLM public land, seven acres of previously disturbed US Forest Service land, 230 acres of Idaho State Endowment land, and 1,169 acres of private land. The expected mine life would be 42 years, followed by an expected two years of reclamation.