" Phosphate mine company will clean up waste to settle lawsuit", 4 Mar 2021

A phosphate mining company has reached a toxic-waste cleanup agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes over mining waste in southeastern Idaho.

Officials with P4 Production LLC, a Monsanto subsidiary, said in a prepared statement Thursday that they worked with the tribes and EPA to develop the remediation plan for the Ballard Mine near Soda Springs...

...The agreement is expected to resolve lawsuits filed by the EPA and the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes over the waste left at the mining site.

Under the proposed agreement, P4 Production wouldn’t admit fault, but it would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the EPA, the tribes and other agencies to cover the costs of responding to toxic waste releases from the mining site. P4 Production would also have to make an additional $89 million available to the EPA as a guarantee that the cleanup work will be completed...

Southeastern Idaho contains large phosphate deposits. There are several mines in the area that have operated by different companies over the last 100 years.

Investigations into the possibility that waste from the phosphate mines in the region could be hurting humans began in 1996...

Ultimately, the investigation found that the mines left dangerous contamination behind, including toxic substances such as selenium, arsenic, uranium, radium and radon. During the last century, those wastes have run into the region’s water sources...

Some of the toxic waste can cause cancer or other illnesses in humans. Investigators found that Native Americans in the area were at risk of being exposed to the toxins at rates far higher than the maximum acceptable levels set by the federal government...