Green River Trona Boom: $5B Mine Expansion to Create 2,000 Jobs

The BLM's approval of Pacific Soda's Dry Creek Trona Mine Project represents a major expansion of Southwest Wyoming's mineral extraction economy. Located south of Interstate 80 and west of Wyoming Highway 530, the project will tap into approximately 117 million tons of recoverable trona to produce roughly six million metric tons of marketable soda ash and 440,900 metric tons of baking soda annually over a 23-year operational life.

The scale of this undertaking underscores the strategic importance of Green River's trona deposits to the national economy. Wyoming currently produces 100 percent of U.S. glass relying on trona mined in the state, and the $470 million industry continues to grow. Major employers like Tronox, Ciner Wyoming LP, TATA Chemicals North America, Solvay Minerals Inc., and Church and Dwight Company Inc. already operate in the region west of Green River, making this the global epicenter of soda ash production.

Pacific Soda's solution mining method will extract trona without underground miners, using injection solution to melt the mineral into brine at depths of 2,300 feet, then pump it to surface processing facilities. The project includes a processing plant, co-generation facility, storage ponds, tailings management, and infrastructure for water supply, natural gas, and electrical transmission. The BLM's approval addressed environmental concerns raised during public comment, with air quality modeling showing the project will not cause violations of air quality standards or create visibility issues at nearby Dinosaur National Monument.

From an economic perspective, the project's 2,000 construction jobs and 300 permanent positions represent a significant workforce injection into Sweetwater County at a time when mineral industries face recruitment challenges. Local governments will access impact funds, and the ripple effect of sustained employment in operations, maintenance, engineering, administration, and site management will likely generate secondary job creation in local services. The $5 billion investment places this among Wyoming's largest industrial projects in recent years.