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Original article

10/14/07 - GREG MARTIN - Charlotte Sun

Staff Writer
 

Expert sees benefit in reservoir offer Mine scientist not worried about contaminants

Reclaimed phosphate mine sites should be used to store water that could be used to maintain the Peace River's flow during dry spells or boost drinking water supplies, according to Peter J. Schreuder, a water resource consultant for the mining industry.

Schreuder, who has worked as a professional environmental scientist in Florida for some 35 years, said he has recently conducted studies that showed mine sites naturally boost the flow of the Peace River and don't contribute contaminants to water resources as some environmentalists suggest.

Schreuder was one of several environmental consultants who were asked by the Sun for their opinions this week about a proposal from the Mosaic mining company to provide water storage sites in exchange for a settlement of litigation from several area counties.

Specifically, Mosaic has offered to provide a site for a 6 billion gallon water supply reservoir on a mined or unmined site in DeSoto or Manatee county. The Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority would build and operate the reservoir.

The company has also offered to store water on mine sites, apparently in pits or clay-settling areas. That water would be discharged into the Peace River to help the river stay above its minimum flow.

In exchange for those and other provisions, the authority and Charlotte, Lee and Sarasota counties would drop all litigation and never object to Mosaic's mining proposals again for the next 30 years.

The company owns some 100,000 acres yet to be mined in the Peace River watershed.

Schreuder said he sees a potential for the mining industry to use its lands to the benefit coastal communities.

And donating a mined-out landscape to the water authority would save the mining company tens of millions of dollars in reclamation costs.

Schreuder cited the fact that, under its permit from the Southwest Florida Water Management District, the authority must stop withdrawing water once the flow of the river at Arcadia drops below 130 cubic feet per second.

Since early this year, the district allowed withdrawals even when the river's flow drops below that cutoff under an emergency water shortage order.

"If the mining people during big storms can hold back some of that (storm) water and release it when the river is close to the 130 cfs cutoff, the authority could continue pumping," Schreuder said. "That opportunity is there. It has never been explored because they have this adversarial relationship."

Schreuder's opinion is at odds, however, with those of other ecologists or environmentalists who suspect reclaimed mine sites contribute contaminants to water resources and drain down surrounding wetlands.

Dr. Sydney Bacchus, a professional hydroecologist who recently testified about impacts stemming from rock mines in Lee County, called Schreuder's theories examples of a "fantasy world."

Bacchus said it's a false assumption to believe water can be "stored" in mine pits.

That's because the ground naturally stores water, and that water naturally moves through the ground -- and through pits in the ground.

The excavation of pits replaces the ground's natural storage capacity and alters the natural movement of the groundwater, she said.

The pits also increase evaporation, and that water is replaced by draining the water table, she said.

"The more 'storage' they claim they are providing, the more they are dewatering the aquifer to make room to 'add' water," she said.

"That's generally when the ultimate death of all the native vegetation or trees on surrounding properties is initiated," Bacchus said. "That's also what initiates the mass invasion of alien and other invasive species you pay millions of tax dollars to try to control."

Bacchus also said she has no evidence at any of the "countless mine pits I have evaluated throughout Florida" that supported Schreuder's claims that mine sites shed more water into streams after they've been mined.

"My professional opinion is that the pits will dewater the aquifer system and associated ecosystems (including surface waters) and the irreversible adverse impacts will extend off-site for many miles," she said.

Some environmentalists have also suggested a public water supply should be drawn from water draining off mine sites. They cite a 2001 study of the former Tenoroc Mine excavated by Borden Chemical in the 1960s.

The study, conducted for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency by the consultant Tetra Tech, was never officially approved by the agency.

However, the study found elevated levels of heavy metals and radionuclides in samples of soil, clay and water on the Tenoroc site. Some of the levels exceed the EPA's cancer risk screening standards.

EPA officials have also indicated such contamination could likely be found at nearly a dozen other Central Florida mine sites.

That raises a question as to whether such contamination could be getting into drinking water supplies, said Jim Cooper, founder of Protect our Watersheds.

"Not being a doctor or a biologist, I don't know what dangers were pointed out in the Tenoroc study," Cooper said. "Anything that can get in the aquifer can obviously go lots of places. If there's a risk there, it ought to be looked at pretty closely."

Cooper has urged the county commissions to slow down their deliberations to examine such issues.

But Schreuder has concluded water draining from phosphate mines poses no health concerns. He bases his opinion on a study he conducted in 2002 for the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research.

The intent of the study was to determine whether wastewater stored on phosphate mines could be treated by filtering it through wetlands and sand piles on the mine sites and stored underground.

The study entailed sampling groundwater at 12 wells bored into the ground on reclaimed mine sites. The samples yielded water that met drinking water standards except for two minor factors, excessive iron and manganese.

However, Schreuder said he found, in a 1994 study, that mine pits would not serve well as reservoirs because the water would seep out of the pits, just as Bacchus has theorized.

He said he also found, in a 2006 study, that the land actually drains more water into the Peace River or its tributaries after it is mined than before.

That's because the mining eliminates the pine trees and other vegetation -- and that reduces the "evapotranspiration."

The natural ecosystem has a limited capacity to store water, Schreuder said.

The Floridan aquifer also remains depleted due to continued agricultural pumping, despite the fact that phosphate mining has reduced its withdrawals from some 300 million gallons per day to about 80 mgd.

An above-ground reservoir could make up for those limitations, Schreuder believes.

"We have a very seasonal flow of surface water, a lot in summer and minimal in the spring," Schreuder pointed out. "You need to overcome that by storing something somewhere."

You can e-mail Greg Martin at gmartin@sun-herald.com.

By GREG MARTIN

Staff Writer

 

 

 

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