Article by Greg Martin - Sun-Herald 07/29/07

County, environmentalist call for mine study - Cooper: Mines should have 'a reasonable plan'

Jim Cooper of Cape Haze can't understand why the federal government won't initiate a comprehensive study of the impacts of phosphate mining, or, at the least, hold a public hearing to consider the public's concerns over the latest proposal for an 11,000-acre mine.

Such studies and hearings are required for federal actions that could result in significant environmental impacts, said Cooper, citing the National Environmental Policy Act and other federal regulations.

As a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Cooper ought to know. While in the Air Force, he was assigned to lead that agency through an Areawide Environmental Impact Statement for an air base in Idaho. At the time, the base was being reorganized to serve as a major training hub for fighters, bombers and tanker planes.

"When I wore my Air Force uniform, under NEPA rules, I was required to go to lots of little towns and counties and make sure the public knew what the impacts were going to be," Cooper said. "That's the Air Force. Now, apparently, the Army doesn't think it has the resources to follow the law. I find that offensive."

Cooper serves as president of the group Protect Our Watersheds. And he is lending his voice to a chorus of renewed calls for a public hearing and an impact study on phosphate mining. Cooper and Charlotte and Sarasota counties each have written lengthy letters to the Army Corps calling for a study and a public hearing. The letters were submitted in response to Mosaic Fertilizer's application for an Army Corps permit to mine its 10,880-acre South Fort Meade mine in northern Hardee County.

The mine is located east of the Peace River between Wauchula and Fort Meade.

The counties and Cooper all cite the fact that the mine is one of three totaling 34,000 acres soon to be excavated simultaneously in the Peace River watershed. The others include the Altman Tract, which was previously permitted, and the Ona mine, which is awaiting a federal permit.

Another six mine sites in the area totaling 70,000 acres also may be mined in the future.

Cooper said it's "beyond unreasonable" that the Army Corps won't agree to repeated requests for public hearings and a study on the mining.

Dave Townsend, spokesman for Mosaic, pointed out the decisions to conduct a public hearing and a study are up to the federal government. Mosaic wouldn't object to either a hearing or a study -- provided the study encompasses the impacts of all human activity in the watershed.

The Army Corps issued a notice May 29 indicating the agency had already concluded no impact study would be required.

Mosaic plans to strip mine the site over the next 21 years. The mine application calls for 1,800 acres of wetlands to be preserved and 511 acres of wetlands and 55,000 linear feet of stream channels to be mined.

The plan calls for Mosaic to mitigate those impacts by reclaiming the site with 837 acres of wetlands, including some 400 acres of manmade lakes. The company is seeking a waiver from state water quality standards for the lakes because their waters won't meet required levels for dissolved oxygen.

Also, Mosaic plans to replace the excavated streams with manmade channels designed to resemble natural streams.

The site previously has been altered for agriculture, according to Mosaic's Townsend. Some areas already have been cleared of forests and drained by ditches, he said.

"We're replacing the streams under new DEP guidance, foot for foot, with state-of-the-art stream-modeling techniques, revegetation of forest systems and other long-term protections," Townsend said. "So our reclamation will actually replace the streams with streams that are more functional."

Meanwhile, Cooper pointed out people are moving to Florida because they perceive it has a superior quality of life. That raises doubt over whether strip mining remains in the public interest, he said.

"If they're coming for that quality of life, trust me, they don't want anything to interfere with that quality of life," Cooper said.

In his letter, Cooper called strip mining with a dragline "a dinosaur." The Army Corps should compel Mosaic to evaluate alternative mining methods that are less destructive, he said.

"Dragline mining permanently destroys wetlands and uplands and all their natural functions, by ripping out all of the earth (down to depths of 50-70 feet) in their quest to mine for matrix," Cooper wrote.

Cooper also called the wetland impacts "unacceptable." President George W. Bush in 2002 stated the goal for the Environmental Protection Agency was "no more loss of wetlands," Cooper pointed out.

Mitigation should not be considered an option for the phosphate industry, he added.

"They have not been able to rebuild or to create a successful, functional, manmade wetland system and (are) not able to fully restore all of its vital, natural, hydrological, biological and ecological systems with complete functionality," Cooper wrote.

Charlotte County, in its letter, also claimed Mosaic has failed to reclaim certain types of wetlands in the past. The county, in its submittal, cited the conclusion of a state hearing officer who ruled in a past mining challenge that some of Mosaic's reclaimed wetlands had failed to meet state standards.

Townsend, however, pointed out Mosaic's mining applications cite measures to gauge the success of the mitigation wetlands. The DEP and the Army Corps only release the company from its permit obligations after the wetlands are deemed to have met the criteria.

"It's only at that point would we call our wetlands successful," Townsend said. "Mosaic has reached success on thousands of wetland acres."

Charlotte County, in its submittal, questions whether Mosaic has accounted for all the wetlands to be impacted on the South Fort Meade mine. The county cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that partially closed a loophole for "isolated wetlands." Under a past ruling, isolated wetlands were deemed not to be under the jurisdiction of federal regulation.

But in the 2006 "Rapanos" case, two supreme court justices clarified that isolated wetlands are under federal jurisdiction if they have a connection to the ecosystem of a federal water body.

Mosaic doesn't believe the Rapanos decision would require the federal regulation of isolated wetlands on the Mosaic site, Townsend said.

He pointed out that Mosaic has applied for the U.S. agency's permission to impact 511 acres but has applied to the DEP to impact 751 acres of wetlands on the South Fort Meade site. So, all the wetlands on the site will either be preserved or replaced, he said.

Cooper recalled the Environmental Impact Statement he helped conduct for the Air Force's plan to make Mountain Home AFB in Idaho a training hub. As a result of that study, the Air Force developed a plan that protected wilderness areas while accomplishing the Air Force's goals, he said.

A similar study on phosphate mining also could result in a "reasonable plan" for phosphate mining, Cooper said.

He suggested such a plan may call for greater setbacks and protections for wetlands and streams, but still allow mining to occur on a majority of the site.

By GREG MARTIN Sun-Herald

Website provided by ImageGrafix - Computer and Network Systems - Site Hosting Solutions
© Copyright  2003 ImageGrafix. All Rights Reserved.