BLM taking final comments on multi-billion dollar project

CASPER — A multi-billion dollar trona production project in Sweetwater County is nearing the finish line.

Pacific Soda LLC’s Dry Creek Trona Mine Project would produce approximately 440 metric tons of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and 6 million metric tons of soda ash annually. Soda ash is a highly marketable commodity with applications ranging from glass manufacturing to metallurgy and cosmetics.

The project, first proposed in 2020, is in a race against the clock to win approval before the Bureau of Land Management updates its Rock Springs Resource Management Plan, which could prioritize conservation in a way that makes large scale developments like the Dry Creek project harder to pursue, local officials believe.

The proposal is now in its final 45-day public comment period with the BLM, and if approved would significantly increase the state’s trona output. Wyoming is currently the nation’s top supplier of trona, and industry investment could soon make it top in the world.

The globe’s largest supplier of natural soda ash, London-based We Soda, is also nearing approval for its Project West development in Green River, which could add up to three million tons of Cowboy State trona to international markets each year.

Different from conventional hard rock trona mining, both Green River proposals would employ “solution mining” technology in which water cocktails are injected into mineral beds as deep as 2,300 feet below the surface, where trona is dissolved into solution and pumped back to the surface for processing.

The company estimates there are more than 200 million metric tons of trona in reserve across the Dry Creek project area, which would yield output for decades at the expected extraction rate.

The project would disturb approximately 3,369 acres of private land, 2,947 acres of BLM-administered lands, and 9 acres of land administered by the U.S. Forest Service, all within Sweetwater County.

The company initially proposed co-locating mining and processing facilities, but the BLM’s preferred alternative would see many of the processing facilities — including a refinery, purge pond, landfill, stormwater pond and utility co-generation infrastructure — moved to an area north of I 80, approximately 8 miles west of Green River and connected to the mine site by a pipeline.

The public comment period is expected to raise questions about wildlife impacts, including threatened fish species, sensitive wetland ecosystems and vegetation. The project also invites questions about water apportionment at a time when drought and increased demand is shifting the way states think about water in the west.

Green River trona projects are designated junior water rights holders, so in the event of “calls,” or rations, on the Colorado and Green Rivers, trona operations would be among the first to lose rights.

“If there is a call on the river, they’re going to be the one first to have to shut off their taps. They’re going into this [knowing] that could happen,” said Rep. JT Larson, R-Rock Springs, who also serves on the Sweetwater County Chamber of Commerce.

The company estimates it will need up to 4,796 gallons per minute, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, during operations. The water right obtained by Pacific Soda allows for up to 14,500 acre-feet of water from Wyoming’s Green River allotment.

Sweetwater County officials have high confidence the project will materialize and bring opportunity with it.

“We’re really excited… to see our trona industry expand. It means more good paying jobs for our community, and these opportunities in our communities only come around every so often,” said Larson.