The government approved the Dry Creek Trona Mine Project in Wyoming, set to produce soda ash and create jobs. Some environmental concerns raised. Monitoring and permits in progress.
Bureau of Land Management photo
The future site of the Dry Creek Trona Mine Project.
The federal Bureau of Land Management announced on May 2, 2025, the approval of the Dry Creek Trona Mine Project south of Green River in Sweetwater County, Wyo.
Trona is a mineral used to produce soda ash — an essential raw material in baking soda, glass, chemicals, detergents and other key industrial products, including lithium-ion batteries.
The approved project authorizes Pacific Soda LLC to construct mine well fields, processing facilities, storage ponds; a co-generation facility; landfills for salt and lime; transportation facilities; natural gas and water pipelines; and powerlines to mine and process materials from underground trona beds 2,300 ft. below the surface.
The project is expected to employ up to 2,000 workers during construction and create about 300 full-time, high-paying jobs over the mine's life.
Pacific Soda estimates there are approximately 117 million tons of recoverable trona within the proposed project area that could produce approximately 6 million metric tons of marketable soda ash and more than 440,900 metric tons of baking soda annually.
The project could become a more than $5 billion investment, according to filings Pacific Soda submitted in 2024 with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Industrial Siting Council, cowboystatedaily.-com reported.
"I applaud this action taken by Bureau of Land Management-Wyoming," said U.S. Rep. Harriett Hageman in a statement. "The Cowboy State plays a key role in the new administration's mission to ramp up American manufacturing and our trona miners are at the forefront. Mine baby, mine."
The proposed mining area is south of Interstate 80 and west of Wyoming Highway 530, near the city of Green River, according to cowboystatedaily.com. The main facility is set for west of Flaming Gorge Reservoir near Big Dry Creek north of Black Mountain.
"Proposed project facilities include processing facilities, comprising a solution mining pump station, refinery, a co-generation facility, and storage ponds and tailings piles. Utility infrastructure would include a water supply pipeline, overhead transmission line, and natural gas pipeline," according to the BLM.
"Transportation infrastructure includes a rail line, one existing access road and one constructed access road; these facilities would be located north of the mining area, on the north side of I-80," continued the BLM in its Record of Decision.
The project has raised some environmental concerns, which were voiced last year during the public comment theory, according to cowboystatedaily.com.
The National Park Service said the project could impact air quality at nearby Dinosaur National Monument, while the Wyoming Game and Fish Department questioned the project's impacts on wildlife habitats.
In its final Record of Decision, the BLM explained why it supported a fourth project alternative.
"Implementation of Alternative D would result in a larger overall disturbance footprint as compared to Alternative B and Alternative C; however, this alternative limit impacts to sensitive resources," stated the BLM. "The total surface disturbance would be approximately 7,015 acres, of which approximately 3,593 acres would be on private land, 3,329 acres would be on BLM-administered lands, and the remaining 93 acres would be on lands administered by the State of Wyoming."
The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) will monitor air quality from the mine's operations, according to cowboystatedaily.com.
Jacqueline Alderman, public affairs specialist with the BLM's High Desert District, said Pacific Soda is now working with WDEQ to obtain a mining permit.
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