By Danielle Grant, Local News 8 Reporter
The J.R. Simplot company warns workers more than 100 people will be without jobs soon.
Company leaders said 78 employees will be laid off at the Don Plant which is west of Pocatello, and another 36 will be let go from the Smoky Canyon Mine near Soda Springs.
The company says it's running out of phosphate ore and needs to expand the Caribou County mine to continue production.
But a pending lawsuit allowing them to do just that is in the hands of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
And conservation groups are arguing it's already a heavily contaminated and polluted site.
Simplot is saying they have less than a year's worth of phosphate ore left to mine.
However, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition claims Simplot said about a month ago they could survive until next summer at their existing operations.
This is causing them to beg the question is it really the lawsuit or troubling economy that's leaving many without jobs.
It's a busy day at Simplot's Eastern Idaho phosphate mines.
But as their raw material dries up, so are the jobs.
"The jobs that they provide are jobs that are irreplaceable to our community," said Pocatello Mayor Roger Chase.
Recent court actions have put further expansion on hold at the Smoky Canyon Mine.
The president of Simplot's AgriBusiness Group says if they can't dig deeper, they may be forced to shut down operations all together.
And even if they do get the green light years down the road, it may be too late.
"That would be very challenging. Phosphate facilities, there's a tremendous amount of capital invested and ultimately if you bring down the plant and production facilities you lose people and it becomes very difficult to bring operations such as this size back up," said Garrett Lofto, Simplot's AgriBusiness Group President.
Environmental groups like the Greater Yellowstone Coalition want to preserve the area's wildlife and clean water.
And they're not buying in to Simplot's reasoning for the layoffs.
"I think it's the economy. I think it's the recession. I think there's so much phosphate production right now at overcapacity, that the companies can't sell their products," said Marv Hoyt, the Idaho Director of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition.
Simplot says the Smoky Canyon Mine would create more than a thousand jobs and over $6 million in tax revenue.
But environmentalists say no one has the right to further damage what they call an already polluted phosphate mining site.
No matter the cost or how many jobs are at stake.
Formal lay-offs will happen this week.
Simplot says if the court doesn't allow them to expand they'll be forced to cut their entire workforce and close down both Eastern Idaho operation facilities.
If the plants close permanently, the company says it could hurt the local economy by $131 million every year.
J. R. SIMPLOT COMPANY PRESS RELEASE
The J. R. Simplot Company has notified its 560 employees at Smoky Canyon mine and Pocatello fertilizer manufacturing plant that a reduction in force is being implemented because the company has not been able to proceed with preparatory work that would lead to expansion at the mine.
Formal layoff notices will be given this week to 114 employees, 36 at the mine and 78 at the plant.
"We deeply regret that layoffs will be necessary, but the delays caused by special interest groups over the past nine months have placed us in a no-win situation," said Garrett Lofto, president of Simplot's AgriBusiness Group. "If this situation persists, we not only will be forced to reduce our workforce at the mine and plant, but we'll have to close both operations within 18 months."
Simplot has less than a year's worth of phosphate ore reserves remaining in the existing sections of Smoky Canyon. The mine is the sole source of raw material utilized by the company's Pocatello plant in producing essential plant nutrients that are necessary in supporting crop growth that is critical to addressing the global food crisis.
The company's site work to prepare the new sections currently is on hold while the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reviews relevant materials in a legal process that started almost a year ago.
"We had planned to start using ore from the new sections in the fall, and these court-imposed delays have prevented us from doing critical preparatory work," said Lofto. "It is essential that the company complete expansion of the new sections simultaneously with exhausting existing sections in order to provide a steady and reliable supply of ore to our Pocatello plant.
"In addition, these delays will inhibit our ability to supply long-term customers with high-quality plant nutrient products, and eventually this chain of events will impact the growers who use those products to improve crop yields."
Simplot was given permission on June 6, 2008, by federal agencies to begin mining phosphate rock in new sections the company had leased near the existing mine area. The approval occurred after more than five years of study, public comment, and hearings, during which the agencies acknowledged that Simplot's operations are state of the art.
Special interest groups filed a lawsuit September 12 against the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management in opposition to the agencies' decision that the mine expansion could proceed.
U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Mikel Williams on November 27 ruled in favor of the agencies and Simplot moved forward with site preparation on the new mine sections, beginning December 18.
Subsequently, special interest groups filed an appeal of that decision with the Ninth Circuit that led to an order to halt work until Judge Williams could expand his analysis to specifically include a consideration of the preparatory activities. On May 13, Judge Williams issued that decision and lifted the temporary stay, but allowed eight days for an appeal of his ruling to be filed.
Special interest groups filed another appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court on May 14, and that motion is still being considered by the court. Until a decision in Simplot's favor is rendered, site work at the new Smoky Canyon panels cannot resume.
"During the past nine years since we acquired the leases on the areas proposed for expansion, we have demonstrated beyond any legal or practical doubt that this work should move forward," said Larry Hlobik, Simplot president and CEO. "We are concerned that if we cannot move forward immediately, the cost in lost jobs and economic impact throughout the region will be catastrophic."
In his court order of May 13, Judge Williams wrote, "The hardships to a relatively few Plaintiffs simply does not compare with the harm to Simplot, the other Intervenor-Defendants, the struggling economies of southeastern Idaho cities and counties, and possibly the national interest as well.
"In addition to the economic consequences of an injunction," Williams continued, "Simplot urges the Court to consider that there is a strong economic and strategic public interest in the production of phosphate fertilizers given that they are ‘increasingly important to meet the nutritional requirements of the world's population.' "
Williams also wrote in his May 13 order that the BLM and Forest Service decided in 2001 when the proposed expansion areas were leased that Simplot's request was consistent with the applicable land use plans and environmental requirements.
"The Caribou-Targhee National Forest Plan recognizes this area as suitable for phosphate leasing and mining," Williams wrote. "The right to develop phosphate leases and to access leasehold interests (build roads) in this area is expressly authorized by both the 2001 Roadless Rule and the 2008 Idaho Roadless Rule."
Williams concluded that the case presented by the special interest groups trying to stop expansion of the mine "is not strong on the merits."
An economic impact study conducted by Idaho Economics, a research firm in Boise, Idaho, concluded that if the phosphate mine and fertilizer plant were to close, it would have a combined economic impact of $131 million per year across 11 counties in Eastern Idaho and Lincoln County, Wyo.
Although the mine is located in Idaho's Caribou County, most employees live in Lincoln County, Wyo. The fertilizer plant is located in Power County, but most employees live in Bannock County, both in Idaho. The underground pipeline between the two facilities passes through all three of the Idaho counties.
The study also concluded that in addition to the 560 jobs in jeopardy from closing the mine and plant, the phosphate operation creates another 1,066 jobs in the region and over $6.3 million in Idaho tax revenue.
In addition to employee layoffs, the Simplot Company has released 199 contracting company workers, and has not filled 22 vacant positions that would otherwise have been filled.
GREATER YELLOWSTONE COALITION PRESS STATEMENT
Simplot Layoffs at the Smoky Canyon Mine and Don Plan
Today the J.R. Simplot Company announced it was curtailing operations at its Smoky Canyon Mine in Caribou County and its Don fertilizer plant in Pocatello. In court documents, Simplot itself has stated they have enough phosphate ore at their existing operations to last the company into the summer of 2010. Just last August, Simplot filed a document with the US Forest Service in which they claimed to have just less than three years of ore remaining at their existing mine.
There are other sources of phosphate ore available to Simplot, if only they would make the effort to obtain it. Ashley Creek Phosphate of Utah has tried for years to get Simplot to purchase phosphate ore from Ashley's reserves in UT, reserves that are literally adjacent to Simplot's Vernal Utah phosphate mine.
Simplot has been trying to expand its current mining operations at Smoky Canyon Mine for five years, despite the fact that the mine is a Superfund site. Rather than laying off mine workers, shouldn't they re-deploy them to clean up their past mess?
Are Simplot's announced layoffs due to the current recession and lack of demand for phosphate based fertilizer - the phosphate industry in general has had to cut back recently because the price of phosphate fertilizers has plummeted. Although Simplot wants to prop its operation up by expanding its Smoky Canyon Mine, nobody has the legal right to dump more pollution into a toxic Superfund site, no matter how many jobs might be created by doing so.
