Smoky Canyon Mine, Idaho

The Smoky Canyon Mine, in southeast Idaho, next to the border of Wyoming, supplies Simplot’s Don Plant in Pocatello with the 1.7 million tons of phosphate ore it consumes annually, to make phosphate fertilizers. The mine was developed in the mid-1980s and has a beneficiation plant on site, which refines and grinds the ore into a powder. It is then mixed with water and moved via an 8” diameter pipeline to the Conda Plant, 27 miles away, which was owned by Simplot when the pipeline opened. In 1991, a booster station was installed at Conda, and the slurry pipeline was extended to the Don Plant, 60 miles away from Conda, and 86 miles from the mine. This pipeline continues to be the sole source of phosphate ore for the Don Plant.