‘They’re not bringing them back:’ Colonsay reacts to ‘idled’ potash mine

A lot of questions are swirling around the town of Colonsay following the indefinite idling of its Mosaic potash mine Tuesday.

Mayor Jim Gray is one person with questions — and the answers he has all add up to a grim future for the town of around 450. Gray told 650 CKOM he doesn’t think workers will be returning to work whatsoever.

“If you shut them out as idle, (you’re) not bringing them back,” he said. “To be honest with you, I think (Mosaic has) cut the tie (with the mine). I don’t think in your or my lifetime it will be going again.

“They don’t pull the plug on something with that amount of money sitting there.”

Gray also apologized to the 80 workers who lost their jobs.

“I’m sorry to see anybody lose jobs, especially when you don’t deserve to lose them,” he said. “There’s some awful good people out there — good workers, and diligent to their job. I don’t think it’s the right way to go.”

Colonsay Mayor Jim Gray discusses the indefinite idling of his town’s potash mine on Jan. 28, 2020. (Brady Lang/650 CKOM)

The workers who lost their jobs weren’t the first at the company. In August, Mosaic issued 395 layoff notices, with 340 impacted through unionized seniority. Those 340 have not returned to work.

The two major layoff notices amount to one thing that the town of Colonsay will struggle through, and that’s getting the town’s taxes paid. Gray said the “bad news” Tuesday just added to the issue.

“You’re taking most of the people that are out there, (they’re) high-paid people, they’re young, and they’re in good salary,” he said. “They’ve got houses to pay for, they’ve got cars to pay for, they’ve got everything else to pay for, because they’re young yet. It’ll be a real deficit to this community.

“It’s going to hurt. I don’t care what anybody tells you, the taxes won’t come in the same as what they have.”

Gray said up until the last year, his residents have been “fairly good” for paying their annual dues. He estimated 25 homes housed workers at the mine, but nearly the whole town is connected to the facility.

Whether that’s having a family member at the mine, a friend or a friend’s friend, it’s hitting the community hard, Gray said.

“It’s not as if you’re pulling 10 families that are living here, and the rest are living around in the community. There’d be 25 homes that you’re hurting,” he said.

“If you shut (the mine) down for six months, and everybody knows it’s going to be shut down for six months, they can do something. This here, when you get told they’re just shutting it down, now where do you go?”

Gray said the town also is set up with tax-sharing through the potash mine. He said in 2015, Colonsay was given $76,000. Fast forward to 2019 and it was down to $62,000 from the tax share base.

His outlook for 2020?

“I would doubt whether we get 30(,000) next year, and don’t ask me where it’s going to go from there, because I have no idea,” Gray said.

Gray was visibly disappointed by the decision. His town was hopefully awaiting the return of the now-indefinitely idled mine.

He said in terms of production, Colonsay’s mine produced red potash, which is something China bought. Without that trading partner, things don’t look great for the reopening of the mine.

Gray said operations for Saskatchewan potash can be done through Esterhazy’s K3 mine, something Sarah Fedorchuk — the vice-president of public affairs and government relations for The Mosaic Company — confirmed Tuesday.

“Colonsay has historically been considered a swing facility, meaning that when there’s strong demand, our lower-cost assets — like an Esterhazy or a Belle Plaine — run at high production levels but then there’s also room in the market to run Colonsay,” she said.

Gray did have a message for The Mosaic Company, and he didn’t hold back.

“They’re a big corporation, (so) they don’t care what I think,” he said. “They can argue that they give the people time to tell them that it’s going to be (reopening) but that isn’t the truth.

“They said that they were going to hire them back, eventually. Well, eventually is never going to come.”

Colonsay Co-op ‘not going anywhere anytime soon’

As Colonsay’s town businesses dwindle, one located adjacent to Highway 16 doesn’t have any plans to mirror the idled potash mine.

Jade Gulash, marketing and communications manager for the Saskatoon Co-operative Association, admitted that traffic has declined at Colonsay’s town Co-op.

“We’ve definitely seen a reduction in the amount of commuter traffic and so we’ve kind of shifted our hours a little bit to allow for that, because we’re not seeing as many commuters in the morning and the drive home,” Gulash said.

The store offers Co-op gas, grocery and liquor, and agricultural products out of the facility. Gulash said people still seem to be “wrapping their heads” around what the mine closure means for the community.

“Everyone is going to find this difficult, but we’re really happy to see a lot of people being positive, and looking at how we can continue to support that community through the long term,” Gulash said.

Gulash was unable to distinctly identify the potash mine’s closure as the root of the declining store traffic, but said the store is “not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“We’re in that business for the long term,” she said. “I think if you’re to believe a lot of people around the area, (the mine closure) definitely has had an impact, and we suspect it probably has, but we don’t know the extent of that, or how that has played into the other things that are affecting the economy and business right now.”

The store was taken over by Saskatoon Co-operative and reopened in mid-2017, Gulash said.