The Wound That Won’t Heal: Idaho’s Phosphate Problem
Credit: Abandoned infrastructure marks the entrance to the Gay Mine on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, which supplied 65 million tons of phosphate ore to the now-defunct FMC plant on the reservation, and the still-operating Simplot plant in Pocatello. At this part of the mine, ore was dumped onto a rail line, on the other side of the ridge from the lookout tower, that carried it 38 miles to the plants.
