Sho-Bans sue government over land swap in Idaho
Monday, January 11, 2010
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes have filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, contending that the government's land swap with the J.R. Simplot Co. could lead to greater pollution and poor air quality.
In the lawsuit, filed in Boise's U.S. District Court on Wednesday, the tribes ask a federal judge to bar the land swap. The government approved the deal in 2007, which would trade about 670 acres of Simplot-owned key mule deer winter range near Blackrock Canyon for 719 acres of BLM property near the company's phosphate production area. Simplot wants the land so it can expand its gypsum stack, a pile of gray dirt that remains after phosphate is removed from slurry.
