WORKING PAPER NO. 38
COLUMBIA RIVER BASIN PROJECT
FOR WATER SUPPLY AND WATER QUALITY MANAGEMENT
CARIBOU COUNTY (IDAHO)
PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC RECONNAISSANCE
AND ESTIMATE OF GROWTH, 1960-2010
DATE; December 10, 1962 DISTRIBUTION
Prepared by RLC Project Staff
Reviewed by . Cooperating Agencies,
Approved by ' General ___________
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE
Public Health Service
Region IX
Division of Water Supply and Pollution Control
Room 570 Pittock Block
Portland 5, Oregon
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this working paper contains preliminary data and information
primarily intended for internal use by the Columbia River
Basin Project staff and cooperating agencies. The material
presented in this paper has not been fully evaluated and
should not be considered as final.
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CARIBOU COUNTY (IDAHO)
PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC RECONNAISSANCE
AND ESTIMATE OF GROWTH, 1960-2010
Table of Contents
Page
SUMMARY 1
I. INTRODUCTION 2
A. Purpose of This Analysis 2
B. Definition of the Area 2
C. Study Period 2
D, Limitations of This Analysis 2
II. PRESENT ECONOMIC BASE 3
A. Population 3
B. Industry 3
III. ESTIMATED FUTURE GROWTH 6
A. Factors Influencing Future Growth 6
B. Future Population 9
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CARIBOU COUNTY (IDAHO) C-l
PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC RECONNAISSANCE
AND ESTIMATE OF GROWTH, 1960-2010
SUMMARY
Caribou County, Idaho had a 1960 population of 5,976. The main town of
the area, Soda Springs, contained 2,424 of these, or about 40 percent.
Another 1,141 persons resided in two smaller towns; the remaining population
was largely settled in scattered farms, The county's population grew at an
annual rate of 0.7 percent during the 1950-60 decade.
Although agriculture is the principal source of employment in the
county, actual employment in the category declined 15 percent in the last
decade. In contrast, employment in mining and chemical manufacturing, which
is almost entirely based on the phosphate industry, increased 145 percent,
and represented 12.5 percent of the labor force in 1960. Development of the
phosphate industry at Soda Springs, has been followed by pronounced expan-
sion of service industries.
Phosphate mining and refining is estimated to be a major reason for
future growth in the county. This development would be accompanied by an
increase in service activities and manufacturing to serve the local economy.
Based on the assumptions and limitations which are a part of this preliminary
economic reconnaissance, the population of Caribou County is forecast to be
15,000 persons in 1985 and 21,500 in 2010, with Soda Springs, the main town,
growing to 11,300 and 17,600 at those dates.
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I. INTRODUCTION
A. Purpose of This Analysis
This analysis is intended to provide a preliminary estimate of the
economic potentials and anticipated growth of the subject area.
B. Definition of the Area
The study area consists of Caribou County, Idaho.
C. Study Period
The study period is the 50-year period 1960-2010, with an interim
point at 1985.
D. Limitations of This Analysis
Three limitations apply to this study. The first is that it is in-
tended only as a preliminary estimate of the outlook for the subject area's
growth. Subsequently, in connection with the Columbia River Basin Project
for Water Supply and Water Quality Management, an analysis will be made on
an industry^by-industry basis of the growth potential in the various sub-
basins. At that time this preliminary estimate will be reviewed and revised
if necessary.
The second limitation is that this study is intended for use par-
ticularly in assessing future water needs. Emphasis has been placed on the
analysis of those industries which make heavy demands upon the water resource.
Other industries have been considered only insofar as they may have a signifi-
cant effect on future population. For this reason, this study is not sub-
mitted as a detailed industrial forecast.
The third limitation is one of scope. The study is oriented to a
specific project and is intended for sizing purposes. Consideration of inter-
region relationships at a later date may require modification of conclusions.
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II. PRESENT ECONOMIC BASE
A. Population
The population of Caribou County at the time of the 1950 and 1960
censuses is presented in Table I. Between 1950 and 1960 extremely rapid
growth in Soda Springs, the principal town of the county, together with a
moderate drop in rural populations, changed the composition of the area from
predominantly rural - 53.5 percent of the population in 1950 - to moderately
urban (59.6%). At the time of the I960 census, Soda Springs contained almost
41 percent of the county's total inhabitants. Population in the two smaller
towns in the county, Bancroft and Grace, declined as the farm-based popula-
tion of the region underwent the contraction typical of Idaho and national
agricultural areas.
TABLE I &
Population Trends. Caribou County. 1950. 1960
Bancroft
Grace
Soda Springs
Total Urban
Rural
Total County
B. Industry
Table II lists employment in major industry categories at April,
1960.
(Table II on Page C-4)
1950
495
761
1,329
2,585
2,991
5,576
1960
416
725
2,424
3,565
2,411
5,976
Change
-79
-36
1,095
980
-580
400
(16.0%)
( 4.7%)
(82.4%)
(65.5%)
(19.4%)
( 7.1%)
a/ U. S. Census of Population, 1950, 1960.
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TABLE II S/
Employment Trends, Caribou County
1950 I960
% %
No. Labor Force No. Labor Force Change
Agriculture 831 ( 42.8) 705 ( 32.0) -126 {-'15.2%)
Forestry & fisheries 7 ( .4) 4 ( .2) - 3 (- 42.8%)
Mining 113 ( 5.8) 42 ( 1.9) - 71 (- 62.8%)
Construction 86 ( 4.4) 111 ( 5.0) 25 ( 29.1%)
Mfg: wood products 22 (1.1) 0 ( - - 22 (-100. %)
food & kindred pdts 23 ( 1.1) 19 ( .-. .8) - 4 (- 17.4%)
chemical & allied 0 - 235 ( 10.6) 235
all other 8 ( .4) 24 ( 1.1) 16 ( 300 %)
Transportation 62 ( 3;2) 67 (3-0) 5 ( 8.0%)
Communications & utilities 74 ( 3.8) 102 ( 4.6) 28 ( 37.8%)
Wholesale & retail trade 238 ( 12.2) 338 ( 15.3) 100 ( 42.1%)
Financial & personal serv. 209 (10.7) 188 ( 8.5) - 21 ( -10.0%)
Educational services 102 (5.2) 128 (5.8) 26 ( 25.5%)
Other professional serv. 11 ( .5) 49 (2.2) 38 ( 348.0%)
Public administration 66 ( 3.4) 68 ( 3.0) 2 ( 2.9%)
Industry not reported 32 (1.6) 8 ( .3) - 24 ( -75.0%)
Total Employment 1,884 (97.0) 2,088 (94.3) 204 ( 10.8%)
Unemployed 58 (3.0) 126 (5.7) 68 ( 117,0%)
Labor force 1,942 (100.0) 2,214 (100.Q) 272 ( 14.0%)
During the ten years 1950-60 Caribou County's labor force expanded
14 percent, rising from 32.8 percent of population to 37 percent of popula-
tion. Employment in service industries climbed from 40.6 percent of the
labor force to 42.7 percent of the labor force. And total employment rose
10.8 percent in spite of a 13.7 percent drop in 1950's main non-service in-
dustries, agriculture, lumbering and mining.
The interjection of the chemical industry with the location of
Monsanto Chemical Company's phosphate plant at Soda Springs, has been re-
sponsible for much of the area's development during the last decade.
Phosphate refining has provided sufficient employment to more than balance
loss of farm jobs, and has provided the income to spur a considerable growth
a?U. S. Census of Population, 1950, 1960
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of service activities and construction in the area.
Mining in Caribou County consists of the strip-mining of phosphate
deposits at three locations. The phosphate rock is largely processed at
Soda Springs and nearby Montpelier and Pocatello. Because mining operations
are the first step in integrated manufacturing operations, employment is
fairly stable.
The agricultural economy is based increasingly on grazing. High
elevation, a short growing season, moderate precipitation, and broken
terrain interpose difficulties to many types of farming. The principal
crops of the area are grains and hay, with a moderate amount of potatoes
and sugar beets also cultivated. Farm consolidation has progressed far
more slowly than in most parts of Idaho, due, perhaps, to the fact that
the average size of farms in Caribou County is twice that of the state as
a whole, with a consequent limit on the attainment of economies of scale
available from consolidation. Although irrigation increased markedly be-
tween 1954 and 1959, there was little effect on either crop production or
size of herds: in physical volume, grain output rose 2.2 percent; forage
output rose 18.4 percent; potato output jumped 45 percent, but amounted
to only 258,313 hundredweight in 1959; sugar beet output rose 7.5 percent;
cattle and sheep herds rose very moderately, with a 7.2 percent rise in the
number of milk cows accounting for the total increase in cattle numbers,
testimony to increasing attention to dairying. Table III described signi-
ficant trends in the agricultural economy of the area.
(Table III on Page C-6)
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TABLE III -f
Caribou County Agricultural Trends. 1949-1959
1949-1959
1949 1954 1959 Change
No. of farms 593^ 579 545 -8.1%
Average size of farm(acres) 699.2 V 889.1 1052.1 50.5%
Pasture (acres) 166,986 251,293 305,298 80.3%
Land irrigated(acres) 41,360 51,451 51,882 25.4%
Cropland harvested(acres) 145,992 152,927 150,485 3.0%
Value of crops sold $3,856,177 $3,825,607 $3,999,749 3.6%
Value of livestock & prdts $2,583,014 $2,527,614 $3,487,870 23.4%
sold
Dairy products sold $ 396,262 $ 498,091 $ 633,441 57.3%
III. ESTIMATED FUTURE GROWTH
A, Factors Influencing Future Growth
Further development of the phosphate industry is the crucial ele-
ment in assessing growth prospects of Caribou County. Largely due to rapid
acceptance of detergents, demand for phosphate has increased at a better
than ten percent average annual rate since World War II; and though main-
tenance of the rate of growth is unlikely, a still healthy rise in demand may
be anticipated. The U. S. Department of Commerce has suggested a 4% percent
growth rate from 1965 to 1980. -'
Idaho and Utah, perhaps Wyoming, have substantial deposits of this
raw material. Growth of the western phosphate Industry, however, must be re-
lated to high freight costs for coke used in processing and for shipment of
finished materials to major markets - the East Coast for industrial chemicals,
the Midwest for fertilizers. This competitive disadvantage has slowed de-
velopment of the western phosphate industry, and makes it a somewhat marginal
portion of the national industry. Discovery of substantial commercially
a/ U. S. Census of Agriculture, 1950, 1960.
b/ 1950
\J Current Industrial Reports. Inorganic Chemicals. Series M 28 A.
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utilizable phosphate deposits closer to major markets would impede, perhaps
preclude, growth of the Idaho industry for some years.
Several factors, however, suggest continuing robust growth. (1) Growth
of western population favors revision of freight rates, as does the increasing
willingness of regulatory bodies to allow greater flexibility in rate determi-
nation. (2) Export markets in the Orient and Latin America offer huge
potential to the western phosphate industry. Foreign aid policies and
economic growth in such undeveloped areas may well enable the western phos-
phate industry to share fully in growing world markets. (3) Development of
regional sources of coke is being pursued, and could afford an important
cost relief. (4) Most important, the highest production cost of phosphate
is electricity. Public policies fostering the provision of low-cost electri-
cal power such as is now available in other parts of the Pacific Northwest,
could result in a flowering of the western phosphate industry analogous to
that of the Northwest aluminum industry in the late 1940's and early 1950's.
For the purposes of this paper, it is assumed that the phosphate
industry will experience employment growth on the order of four percent
annually through the study period.
Agriculture, the county's largest employer, offers little prospect
for growth. The present large size of the average farm,growth of dairying,
and some easing of the uncertainty of agriculture through provision of
supplementary irrigation, should permit farm employment and rural population
to hold constant through the study period.
Services and construction should expand healthily in the frame-
work provided by a vigorously growing phosphate industry. For design
purposes, it is assumed that service employment will rise to sixty percent
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of total employment by 1985, and maintain this ratio through the later stages
of the study period. (In 1960, services .'provided 59 percent of all employ-
ment nationally. In 1962 the national ratio was well over sixty percent)
Construction is estimated to maintain the 1950-60 rate of growth, 2.4 per-
cent. Non-chemical manufacturing is assigned a two percent annual growth
rate, somewhat arbitrarily, the reasoning being that expanding population
and economic activity normally brings forth a number of manufacturing
activities - e.g. bakeries, bottlers, metal and woodworking shops - serving
a local market, and that such activities, accounting for only 1.9 percent
of the 1960 labor force, are underdeveloped in the area.
The design economy, in employment terms, for 1985 and 2010 is
contrasted with 1960 in Table IV.
TABLE IV
Prelected Employment. Caribou County. 1960-2010
Agriculture
Mining
Construction
Mfg: chemical
all other
Services
Total Employed
Unemployed
& allied
»
'ed
Force
1960
705
42
111
235
43
952
2088
126
2214
1985
700
120
200
635
70
2600
5325
220 if
5545
2010
700
325
360
1715
115
4835
8050
335 •£
8385
&l Projected at four percent of the labor force.
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(A stringent limitation on this forecast should be noted. Develop-
ment of the phosphate industry is the principal basis for predicting the
growth of Caribou County; and in drawing the economic design it is assumed
that growth will be centered proportionately in regions where the industry
has already developed. It must be noted, however, that a large portion of
eastern Idaho - roughly from Idaho Falls to Montpelier - offers the
conditions for phosphate plant location.)
B. Future Population
The estimate of future population in Caribou County is based on
the economic design drawn above and on the assumption that the labor force
as a percent of the population will remain near 1960 levels. While a
greater portion of the county's population was drawn into the labor force
between 1950 and 1960, national trends in recent years suggest that the
pool of labor is being drawn from an increasingly smaller part of the total
population. It is possible, then, that before 2010 the labor force of
Caribou County will consist of a smaller, rather than a larger, percentage
of the area's numbers. Assuming, for the purposes of this paper, that the
labor- force remains constant at 37 percent of population, the forecast level
of economic activity would permit Caribou County to accommodate a population
of 15,000 in 1985 and of 21,500 in 2010. To reach these population levels
would require average annual growth rates of 3.7 percent to 1985, 1,6 percent
from 1985 to 2010.
Distribution of the future population would, logically, require
assigning the bulk of growth to Soda Springs. Assuming that a much higher
level of economic activity in this portion of Idaho permits an ancillary
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growth of .5 percent annually in other towns, and that rural populations
remain near I960 levels, a design pattern of population distribution is
presented in Table V.
TABLE V
Estimated Population. Caribou County. 1960-2010
1960 1985 2010
Soda Springs 2,424 11,300 17,600
Other urban 1,141 1,300 1,500
Rural 2,411 2,400 2,400
Total 5,976 15,000 21,500
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