U.S. Magistrate Mikel Williams has denied a preliminary injunction (GM Nov. 10, p. 13) requested by environmental groups to block expansion of J.R. Simplot Co.’s Smoky Canyon phosphate mine on the Idaho/Wyoming border near Afton, Wyo. In his Nov. 26 ruling, Williams said there is little likelihood the environmentalists could prevail on the merits of their case. His denial gives the green light for the mine’s expansion on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest.
Simplot spokesman Rick Phillips said his company will do everything it can as soon as possible to begin the project, depending on the weather. He said Williams’s ruling validates the professionalism of the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which approved the mine’s expansion last summer.
The Greater Yellowstone Coalition said it plans to appeal the ruling. Earlier this year, it filed suit against the expansion on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and other environmental groups. Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund attorneys argued in court against expanding the mine. That lawsuit named federal agencies and top administrators as defendants.
Marv Hoyt, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition’s Idaho director, said his organization plans to ask Williams to reconsider his decision to halt the injunction. If he declines, it will then appeal the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. He said Simplot plans to start installing a forest haul road soon.
Smoky Canyon is the sole source of phosphate ore for Simplot’s phosphate fertilizer plant near Pocatello. Simplot officials say Smoky Canyon ore deposits are expected to be exhausted by 2010, but expansion will allow the company to keep the mine and fertilizer plant operating through 2025.
On Nov. 13, Williams allowed nine parties to intervene on behalf of Simplot ?Çô the cities of Pocatello, Chubbuck, and Afton; Bannock, Caribou, Power, and Lincoln counties; United Steel Workers Local 632; and the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation.
Annual wages and salaries paid at the mine and plant exceed $52 million. Of the 375 employees at the Pocatello plant, 250 belong to the steelworkers union. About 200 workers are employed at the mine. Another estimated 1,450 people are indirectly employed by the operations, whose annual property taxes exceed $3 million.
Simplot has mined at Smoky Canyon since 1984. Each year, about 1.5 million st of phosphate ore are removed from the mine and converted into slurry pumped through nearly 90 miles of pipeline to Simplot’s Pocatello processing plant, where it’s converted into liquid and dry fertilizers used throughout North America.