A federal judge on Friday fully vacated a set of approvals by the Bureau of Land Management authorizing development of the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine in southeastern Idaho.
Phosphate from the mine was slated to be used by Bayer AG which in 2018 purchased the pesticide giant Monsanto in manufacturing glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup brand products. Glyphosate has been found by the Environmental Protection Agency to pose a risk of adversely affecting 93% of the plant and animal species protected under the Endangered Species Act.
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that in approving the Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine the Bureau of Land Management had failed to adequately assess environmental harms, including harms to vital habitat for the imperiled sage grouse.
The ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho determined that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and Federal Land Policy Management Act when it approved the phosphate mine without first analyzing and restricting, mitigating or eliminating impacts to greater sage grouse such as harms to habitat and population connectivity.
Conservation groups filed a motion to intervene in two lawsuits challenging President Biden’s restoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments today. The suits, led by the state of Utah, also attack the Antiquities Act itself as unlawful.
A timber industry group and coalition of Eastern Oregon counties is attempting to intervene in a lawsuit that, if successful, would reimpose a total ban on logging certain large trees