Media Contact:
Bonnie Gestring, bgestring@earthworks.org, 406-546-8386
Just over one week ago, the U.S. Forest Service issued its final decision on a cleanup plan for the Smoky Canyon Mine, an operating phosphate mine with severe selenium pollution that threatens trout streams below the mine, extending from southeast Idaho to Wyoming. The mine is owned by the J.R. Simplot Company (Simplot) and located on public lands in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest in southeast Idaho.
The clean-up plan, required under CERCLA (the Superfund Program), requires the company to double the capacity of water treatment at the mine to treat a total of 4,000 gpm (2.1 billion gallons per year) of selenium-polluted water and add more protective covers to waste piles to reduce the amount of clean water that reaches contaminated mine waste.
“The decision to double water treatment at Smoky Canyon is long overdue,” said Bonnie Gestring, the northwest program director at Earthworks, a non-profit conservation organization. “Selenium pollution is a serious threat to important trout populations in this area. It’s way past time for Simplot to treat all of its pollution.”
Earthworks and the Crow Creek Conservation Alliance, a group of local affected private landowners, have been collecting water and fish tissue samples around the mine for years, and have repeatedly called for comprehensive water treatment at the mine.
Selenium pollution at the mine has been recognized for approximately two decades, with reports of deformed fish garnering national attention. According to the record of decision, selenium levels in fish in Lower Sage Creek and Crow Creek exceed the site-specific Idaho fish criteria for selenium. The State of Wyoming, in comments to the Forest Service, has also raised issues over selenium in Crow Creek as it crosses the border from Idaho. Wyoming does not have a fish tissue criteria, so the cleanup standard there will be based on Wyoming’s water quality criteria for selenium.
Recent fish tissue data has identified a sharp increase in selenium concentrations in fish in Lower Sage Creek and Crow Creek from 2021-2022, emphasizing the urgent need for clean-up and water treatment. Selenium is a toxic pollutant that causes reproductive failure in fish.
