Pacific Soda to bring economic benefits to Sweetwater County

According to Slaugh, this project’s purpose is to construct and operate a solution minefield and associated facilities capable of producing annual quantities of marketable soda ash and sodium bicarbonate; more specifically, the mining of a targeted 6 million tons of trona per year, while the sodium bicarbonate is targeted to be 440,900 tons per year.

Slaugh explained that the mining method is done through a series of wells or well sets, as they call them, and each well set consists of one horizontal well and two vertical wells.

“The horizontal well is used for injection only to where the vertical wells can be used for injection or return,” said Slaugh. “This is crucial to the cavern development of this mining method.”

He added, “Typically, the conventional mining in this area is about 1,500 feet deep. We’re going to be targeting the trona beds at about 2,200 feet deep — 800 to 1,000 feet deeper than the conventional mining with this mining method.”

The processing facility will be about eight miles West of Green River. Primary components include:

• Refinery
• Congeneration Facility
• Calcining and caustic production facility
• Emergency Purge Pond
• Landfill and salt storage
• Rail loop

The mine site will be located about 20 miles southwest of Green River. Primary components include:

• Wellfield
• Solution mining pump station
• Surge pond
• Low TA pond
• Landfill

Slaugh said that the workforce projections on the annual average construction workforce will be about 2,100 people. During peak construction the workforce can hit about 4,200 people.

“Once the facility is operational, there will be a permanent operational workforce of about 530 employees; that is counting both mine sites,” he shared.

Allison Pearson, a representative from Barr Engineering, pointed out that the “jurisdictional area for industrial siding is only Sweetwater County,” which means Eric Bingham, land use director for the county, will still assist with “a lot of collaboration with the municipalities within the county.”

She presented the figures to the commission.

Economic benefits for Sweetwater County are expected due to add valorem taxes, sales, use, lodging taxes; and production taxes.

Direct and secondary regional economic benefits are expected during construction and operation due to increased local incomes, employment, and spending in the community.

Construction direct impact includes hiring of local workers.

Construction secondary impacts include:

• Spending on goods and services in the construction industry
• Locally hired workers spending their earnings
• Non-local construction workers who temporarily relocate and make purchases related to per diem allocation on restaurants and temporary housing

Operations Direct impacts involve hiring of permanent local workers. These direct impacts include:

• Additional goods and services purchases made by Pacific Soda from other businesses in the region
• Household spending by new employees who are hired due to the project
• Creation of additional service jobs

More benefits are to come:

• Estimated to create an additional 528 secondary service jobs
• Estimated $38 million spent on goods and services in Sweetwater County
• Estimated $580 million direct economic impact

Ad valorem taxes based on assessed property value in the following years are as follows:

• 2025: $3.56 million
• 2026: $13.0 million
• 2027: $18.9 million
• 2028: $19.8 million
• 2029: $20.0 million

Sales, use and lodging taxes in the following years are as follows:

• 2025: $17.1 million
• 2026: $45.3 million
• 2027: $28.1 million
• 2028: $4.37 million
• 2029: $3.96 million

Production taxes include soda ash at $27.8 million, sodium bicarbonate at $3.7 million, totaling $31.5 million.

Additional permitting activities include:

• WDEQ Land Quality Division Permit to Mine
• WDEQ Air Quality Division Prevention of Significant Deterioration Application
• WDEQ Water Quality Division WYPDES Large Construction General Permit
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 404 Authorization
• National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) through Bureau of Land Management (BLM)

Those aren’t all permitting activities, Pearson mentioned, those are just the key approvals that they’re working on.

She said it is a lengthy process for all involved and expressed gratitude for the commission’s focus on industrial siting.

“What a massive project,” Keaton West, chairman, expressed after the presentation, noting that millions of dollars will be invested into the community. “It’s hard not to get excited about that. We look forward to seeing it take off and Sweetwater County better saddle up.”