Aman Chabra, Reporter
Local News 8
May 11, 2010

LEMHI COUNTY, Idaho -- Lemhi County and the mining industry have been almost synonymous for the better part of a century.

However, with recent findings of key mineral, cobalt in the hills near Salmon, that history looks to be continuing.

Formation Capital, Inc., a company started and based in Salmon, has been working hard over the past decade to build a facility to mine the cobalt, as part of the Idaho Cobalt Project.

The facility will primarily mine cobalt, the only mine of its kind in the entire United States.

“The U.S. consumes about sixty percent of the world’s cobalt, yet we produce none of it, so the benefits are endless,” said Preston Rufe, Environmental Manager for Formation Capital.

Rufe and other project officials believe the endeavor will be a huge boost to the area’s economy.

Officials say the project will eventually bring more than 150 jobs to the area, 30 of which will come as a result of the mine’s upcoming construction.

The project has even brought native Salmonites back home for rare job opportunities.

“I had to go out and get my education elsewhere, and find a job outside Salmon as well because there weren’t any jobs here,” said Annette McFarland, a project engineer with Formation Capital.

McFarland says he’s happy to be home.

“It’s just been an absolute blessing to have this opportunity to be back home and working in something I love,” said McFarland.

Other employees agree.

“Everywhere I go, somebody asks me when the mine is going to open,” said George King, project geologist, “people want this, local businesses want it, and it’s a good thing that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

Cobalt is normally mined overseas in Africa and other locations outside North America.

The metal also has many practical uses.

“Cobalt is a huge component of our renewable and sustainable energies, from batteries to solar elements, to powering turbines for wind generation, and low and behold it’s right here in Salmon, Idaho, a beautiful place to live,” said Rufe.

The cobalt was discovered back in 1997 in a remote location about 45 miles southwest of Salmon.

Since then, Formation Capital has been conducting studies of the area, drawing up plans, and more recently clearing out space to build the mine.

For now, much of the expensive equipment used for the mine sits in two different locations in Salmon. Most of the materials are found in a remote warehouse which will one day serve as a bus depot for workers to be transported up to the mine site. The rest of the materials can be found in a remote field just outside downtown.

“Right now we’re storing the materials, so when the weather clears up, we can get them up to the site and start phase two of construction,” said Rufe.

Once the site is suitable for construction, Formation Capital expects to go into full-scale building mode, and hopefully have the mine ready for work by August 2011.

So far, Formation Capital has invested $50 million in the project.

Watch the news report