Conda Phosphate Plant, Idaho

The Conda Phosphate Operation produces approximately 540,000 tons per year of mono-ammonium phosphate, super phosphoric acid, merchant-grade phosphoric acid and other specialty phosphate products for the fertilizer industry. It is supplied by nearby phosphate mines in the Permian-age sea bed deposit known as the Phosphoria Formation, located in southeastern Idaho. Itaphos, a Canadian phosphate fertilizer company, based in the Cayman Islands, recently acquired this plant and some of the mines in the area from Agrium. (Regulators required Agrium to divest itself of some of its phosphate assets in order to join with the PotashCorp to become Nutrien in 2018). The plant was owned by Simplot for many years before that. The adjacent town of Conda was founded by the Anaconda mining company in 1920, with around 50 houses around the mine. In 1990, the J.R. Simplot Company bought the mine and closed down the town. The townsite grid is still there, south of the plant, though the buildings are gone.