Latest roundup on P4/Bayer Caldwell Canyon Mine lawsuit

The ongoing lawsuit over the permitted Caldwell Canyon Mine continues to grind its way through the U.S. District Court of Idaho, with Judge B. Lynn Winmill presiding. Recent activity in the case includes the submittal of all the defendant responses and the acceptance of the mine’s owner as a defendant in the case after accepting a condition requested by the plaintiffs.

The gist of the Caldwell Canyon Mine case

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the mine and issued a Record of Decision (ROD) and a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in August 2019. The mine will involve 1,559 acres, of which 160 are federal land. The mine is projected to have a life of 40 years.

The mine’s owner is P4 Production, which is owned by German multinational Bayer AG. P4 is what used to be Monsanto’s phosphate business, including its mines and its elemental phosphorus plant north of Soda Springs. Most of the phosphorus produced by the plant is slated for the production of Roundup, the most-popular and most-reviled herbicide in the world.

The lawsuit was initially filed on April 27, requesting an injunction on the BLM’s approval of the mine. The suit claims the EIS process was flawed and that the EIS failed to adequately address the destruction of habitat for the endangered sage grouse and failed to account for increased selenium contamination of waterways and livestock. The lead legal firm for the defendants is the Boise-based Advocates for the West (AfW) on behalf of the Western Watersheds Project of Hailey, Idaho; the Center for Biological Diversity of Tucson, Arizona and WildEarth Guardians of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

AfW previously won a lawsuit in February 2021 in front of Winmill’s bench on the basis of negative impacts to sage grouse by mining.

P4/Bayer added with conditions

The original defendant was just the BLM. Most of the legal action to date has involved P4/Bayer’s attempt to be named a defendant in the case involving its own Caldwell Canyon Mine.

The phosphate mining firm filed to be included as an defendant in the suit on June 4. Indications that it would succeed in this were apparent from a perusal of the court documents by early August.

The final order to include P4/Bayer as an intervener defendant was issued on Sept. 16 by Winmill after a negotiated stipulation on that inclusion was filed on Sept. 14. The negotiated stipulation between the plaintiffs and P4 has two main provisions. First, the plaintiffs would withdraw their objection to P4 joining the suit as a defendant. Next, P4 agreed to avoid filing briefs which would duplicate briefs filed by the BLM, so long as it was given 14 days to evaluate relevant briefs.

As a new defendant in the suit, P4 filed its response to the original complaint seeking an injunction and declaratory relief on Sept. 16. Its response to the initial complaint argued essentially that EIS documents were indeed adequate as an assessment of the environmental impact proposed mine project: “the (final) EIS for the Caldwell Canyon Mine (is) a document that speaks for itself and provides the best evidence of its contents; therefore, the allegations (of the plaintiffs) do not require a response.”

With the official inclusion of P4/Bayer in the suit, the BLM filed its final version of its response to the suit on Sept. 21.

To date, the environmentalist groups (the plaintiffs) claims can now be summed up as “the EIS process wasn’t good enough” and the BLM’s and P4’s responses can be recapped as “oh, yes, it was.”