Reading Room
History of Selenium in Idaho Mining by Mark Mendiola. A selenium problem in Phosphate mining was not discovered until 1997. After it was discovered in 1997 that horses and sheep grazing near phosphate mining operations in Southeast Idaho were dying from selenium poisoning, the J.R. Simplot Company and other mining companies spent millions of dollars to prevent the problem from recurring and to clean up contaminated areas.
Bruce Winegar, Simplot’s environmental engineering manager, said selenium obviously was present when strip mining in the region first started in the 1950s, but it was never recognized as a problem until several horses died after grazing near Agrium’s Mabey Canyon Mine in Caribou County on pasture at the base of a mine dump.
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-- Posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2007
