A federal judge has blocked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t, in part, properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s decision came five months after he found fault with the way the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved the Caldwell Canyon Mine in 2019.

The mine, proposed by P4 Production LLC, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer AG, was sued by three environmental groups – the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and WildEarth Guardians.

In January, Winmill agreed with the conservation groups that the federal agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws on several counts when it approved the mine, including failing to consider the indirect effects of processing ore at a nearby plant and the cumulative impacts on sage grouse.

The proposed venture would have included two new open mine pits near Soda Springs to extract phosphate ore, according to court documents. It would have resulted in the disturbance of about 1,550 acres of previously undeveloped land nearly 300 miles southeast of Boise. The mine was projected to last for 40 years, with ore taken by truck or rail to a nearby processing plant. There, the ore would be processed to produce glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

 —Ag Proud  – Idaho staff