A federal judge has yanked approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho, saying federal land managers in the Trump administration didn’t in part properly consider the mine’s impact on sage grouse, a bird species that has seen an 80% decline in population since 1965.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill’s Friday decision came five months after he found fault with the way the U.S. Bureau of Land Management approved the Caldwell Canyon Mine in 2019.
