The Trump administration’s push to bring the mining of what it deems to be critical minerals back to the United States has reaped dividends for the state of Utah. The Bureau of Land Management announced last week that it has approved a mining project near Fillmore where Canadian mining company Crystal Peaks Minerals will extract and ship potash.
The potassium-rich potash, commonly used to make fertilizer, will be mined from a dry lakebed called Sevier Playa in Millard County.
Joseph Balash, U.S. assistant secretary for land and minerals management, said the new mining operation is a reflection of a return to prosperity for the America’s rural communities. “As we will see here in Utah, this project and the jobs it creates represents a rising tide: more money into schools, local businesses and communities as a whole,” Balash said.
In June, the Trump administration announced its strategy to expand U.S. mining on public lands of nearly three dozen critical minerals, including potash, with streamlined permitting because such minerals strengthen U.S. security and reduce the need for foreign imports. Officials have said the project could double the United States’ production of sulfate of potash, a form of the mineral used to produce high-value crops like nuts and fruit trees.
Environmental activists and local leaders have expressed concern the project will threaten the area’s solitude and pollute the air and water.
Evelyn Warnick, a Millard County commissioner, told the Associated Press she’s anxious over how the project, which uses water in an evaporative process to produce potash from the lakebed sediment, could reduce water supply in a valley where it’s a scarce, “special commodity.”
Project documents note that any estimate of the socioeconomic effects of water acquisition would be “speculative.”
Some state officials have argued that mining is the most appropriate use of land that doesn’t hold much promise for development. But Steven Bloch, the legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the Sevier Playa deserves protection for its unique solitude and natural beauty.