Mosaic Fertilizer threatens to sue FL county for $618 million to get to mine in FL wetlands.

[madfloridian]

Phosphate companies have done much harm to this state, and yet might sue because they don't get to drill in the watershed of the Peace River. That sum of the lawsuit is a lot more than the yearly budget of the country.

That's called bully tactics.

Mosaic Threatens Manatee County With Lawsuit

MANATEE COUNTY | Florida mining giant Mosaic Fertilizer said Monday it will file a $618 million lawsuit against Manatee County unless commissioners reverse a Sept. 16 vote that denied permission for Mosaic to mine phosphate on a property in Duette.

In a letter sent Monday to county commissioners and other officials, Mosaic representatives said they want a settlement within 90 days. The $618 million figure represents the decline in value of the Altman Tract if the company is not allowed to mine it, said Mosaic spokesman David Townsend. Before the County Commission voted 4-3 to deny the company permission to extract phosphate, the 2,048-acre tract had a long-term value of about $631 million, he said. Townsend said a new appraisal places the land's value at $13 million if mining is not allowed.

They will probably win the right to take over more of the state's wetlands.

The land lies within the watershed of the Peace River, one of the region's primary sources of drinking water. Area environmentalists and some county experts have argued that mining operations on the property could hurt the quality and quantity of that water.

According to county land-use policy, wetlands should be preserved whenever possible.

If a lawsuit is filed, the company will seek compensation under the state's Bert Harris Act, which prohibits local governments from placing an "inordinate burden" on property rights.

Mosaic was formed from Cargill/IMC

Cargill/IMC to be called Mosaic. IMC Global and Cargill Crop Nutrition have agreed on Mosaic as the new name for the merged company

There's a long history of damage done. One example is Piney Point, owned by what was once Mulberry Corporation. It was later taken over to be managed by Cargill.

Piney Point owners left town, live in luxury, left clean-up to taxpayers

Just south of the Hillsborough-Manatee county line, Piney Point is a 700-acre site well chronicled earlier this summer as "one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history" in a front page story by St. Petersburg Times reporters Craig Pittman, Julie Hauserman and Candace Rondeaux. The phosphate plant's woes also have received ample coverage for more than a decade in neighboring newspapers in Tampa, Bradenton, Sarasota and Lakeland."After taking control of Piney Point, Mulberry later declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and simply walked away after dumping the phosphate plant and its problems on state regulators. The price tag to clean up the billion-gallon mess: $140-million and counting. The business executives, now scattered and working in the New York area or Texas, never should have left. And state regulators should not have been so lax in letting them go. It's one sorry precedent.

The owners and operators who got off scott free:
Philip Rinaldi, a French investor Judas Azuelos, Robert Stewart.

After telling one newspaper earlier this year that he has no remorse over Piney Point - "no guilt at all" - Rinaldi now lives in a wealthy New Jersey neighborhood and works as president of P.L. Rinaldi & Associates, a "business development company."

Stewart and two other Mulberry managers were last seen in Texas working outside Houston for Agrifos Fertilizer, which like the Florida company reportedly has a history of financial and environmental problems.

As for Azuelos's whereabouts, no one seems sure. A former Mulberry board member told the Bradenton Herald in May that the French investor(Azuelos) is in Morocco tending another of his phosphate-fertilizer projects.

A little history year by year from Tampa Bay Soundings in 2002.

Piney Point: Back from the Brink?

The Story So Far
A troubled history

1966
Borden Chemical Company constructs Piney Point phosphate plant; four owners since then.

1989
23,000-gallon leak of sulfuric acid from a holding tank, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of people, including Port Manatee workers.

1991
Two air releases of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide.

1993
Mulberry Corporation purchases Piney Point facility from Royster Phosphates, Inc. after Royster declares bankruptcy.

1997
Dam failure at Polk County plant sends 54 million gallons of acid water into Alafia River, killing more than a million fish.

Dec. 28, 1999
Citing a depressed fertilizer market, Mulberry Corp. notifies Florida Department of Environmental Protection of proposed facility shutdowns, with intent to re-open in six months.

2000
DEP increases frequency of inspections and hires consulting firm to verify water storage calculations.

Jan. 30, 2001
Mulberry Corp. contacts DEP to say that financial difficulties will prevent it from assuring environmental security at its Polk County and Piney Point plants; abandons plants 48 hours later.

Feb. 7, 2001
EPA jumps in on emergency basis to run operations for two weeks.

Feb. 8, 2001
Mulberry Corporation files for bankruptcy.

Feb. 21, 2001
DEP takes over with initial $4 million in state emergency funds, most of which is needed to pay the electric bill to keep water pumps and water treatment devices working.

Nov. 2001
DEP authorizes emergency discharges into Bishop Harbor following Tropical Storm Gabrielle; 10 million gallons of partially treated wastewater released to prevent total collapse of dikes.

Jan. 2002
Agency on Bay Management forms task force to develop alternatives to discharging partially treated wastewater from site.

Spring 2002
DEP hires FSU finance professor to develop recommendations for strengthening corporate financial assurances.

May 2002
Cargill Fertilizer announces plans to take over Mulberry Corp.'s defunct Polk County plant.

During the hurricanes of 2004, more troubles began.

Gypsum plant leaking toxic water into Tampa Bay...Cargill again.

Action News footage showed a white river of the sludge racing down the side of the retaining wall like a lava flow from an erupting volcano. Initial reports placed the amount of leaking sludge at 120 million gallons, but Hillsborough County administrator Pat Bean later insisted that the amount was much smaller, closer to 18,000 gallons.

The gypsum sludge was tested by local officials as having a pH value of 1, the second-most acidic on the scale and strong enough to cause severe burns to anyone who comes in contact with it. In addition, such pH levels could prove toxic to aquatic ecosystems; the sludge was running into Archie Creek, a tributary of Hillsborough Bay.

Neighbors were concerned that the spill could have a dramatic effect on the area....."

The Mosaic company has promised a lot if they get to drill near Peace River: "Company representatives said they would set aside more than 500 acres of wetlands, restore the destroyed wetlands after mining and create an additional 100 acres of new wetlands."

I am skeptical given the history of phosphate mining here.

[csziggy]

1. The phosphate industry only drills to assay the amount of phosphate and the amount of overburden

My Dad used to prospect for phosphate using drill rigs. If the phosphate layers are not rich enough or if the amount of overburden is too deep, they do not mine Once they actually start mining, they use open pit methods - really the only way to mine phosphate in that area since it is basically a layer of phosphate rich matrix in layers of sand of other content.

Digging the phosphate out of the ground is only one step of the mining process. Phosphate comes out of the ground as part of a matrix, which is a mix of the phosphate, sand and clay. The phosphate must be separated from the sand and clay it has melded with in the ground over millions of years. Early separation methods included crushing, washing, screening and, in the case of hard rock, picking out silica by hand on a conveyor belt.

Separation advancements in the 1920s and 1930s allowed companies to begin salvaging phosphate particles they had been discarding as waste. Improvements were made in preparing matrix for washing and screening, finer screens were used, and equipment capacity increased. The most important change, however, was the 1927 development of flotation, which separates phosphate rock from sand based on their difference in hydrophobicity (water aversiveness).

Since 1942, most mining advancements have been in refining the dragline mining and flotation processes. Technology advances continue to make it possible for phosphate companies to mine and use lower quality rock.

http://www1.fipr.state.fl.us/PhosphatePrimer/0/7AF891B1F8C41CD585256F7900588FF0

They use big draglines to remove the overburden then spray the phosphate rich layers with high pressure hoses to break it up. Then they pump the resulting slurry to the mine to process and refine the phosphate from the matrix. There is really no way to fully restore a wetland once the environment is torn apart in phosphate mining. Not does the basic process create gaping holes in the land, the byproducts of the refining process come out as sludge and are "stored" in huge holding ponds, often held in by dykes with the levels being much higher than the surrounding water tables or even the surrounding land.

A personal note - my grandfather's name is on that 1927 patent for development of the flotation process and my Dad was a phosphate mining engineer all his life. Although phosphate mining paid for my entire existence, I also know how damaging it is. I used to go horseback riding through areas of beautiful cypress swamps that are all gone because the entire swamp was mined.

While the State of Florida started requiring "land reclamation" back in the 60s or 70s, their idea of "reclamation" was generally to flatten the land out and leave large rectangular shallow lakes. Some of the early reclaimed land has been made into really boring developments with strips of cheap houses all having "waterfront property" facing these rectangular lakes.

Some of the less processed formerly mined land can make good wildlife areas, though different than the original environment. Saddle Creek Park (http://www.saddlecreekpark.com/) outside of Lakeland, Florida is an example of that. "Up until the early nineteen sixties Saddle Creek Park was an open-cast phosphate mine." One of the interesting things is that more hardwoods can grow on the old dykes and tailings piles since they raise the ground level and keep the roots of the trees above the groundwater.

Here you can see the strips of lake left by the mining process:


And here is a view of what the park is now:


It has become a wonderful birding site and a good place to see wildlife - which includes some wild cattle. Last time we visited we saw limpkins which are pretty rare.

I suspect that the area where Saddle Creek Park is now was very much like the Green Swamp still is - and the area they are talking about mining now in Manatee County. While Saddle Creek is now an interesting place to visit, it certainly is NOT the same habitat that the Green Swamp is. And it could be 50-100 years before a parcel slated for mining has any habitat worth talking about.

To really see what land looks like after phosphate mining, us Google Maps Satellite view or Google Earth and take a look at the land between and south of Mulberry and Bartow, Florida.

[madfloridian]

2. Yes, some of it has been done right and with care. Sad it is coming to suing a county though.

Phosphate and citrus were the life blood of Central Florida as long as I can remember. Some of the reclaimed land is well done. But left behind is some very bad stuff..

In my mind the wetlands are too precious to take chances with them. Too unpredictable as well.

This is greed, this lawsuit. Manatee county can not afford it, and thus will have to buckle under.

Some areas of Polk in the past released some very nasty stuff into the air, and it drifted far away to other areas. I would talk to the DEP, and they would tell me they can't clamp down too hard because they need the tax base from the companies. I asked one of them would how they would like that smell over their schoolyard...they admitted they wouldn't. Or the blue clouds moving through the sky at night, scaring people.

It can be done responsibly and often has been. But there have been the greedy owners who just left polluted stuff and disappeared.

Nice post, BTW.

[csziggy]

3. Oh, yes, I remember the toxic stuff and the horrible taste to the water we had to drink

I also remember when the water tables were much higher in Central Florida than they are now. I left Polk County about 1970 - way before much of the abuses of the industry were admitted to the public. Much of the phosphate has been mined out in Polk so now the industry is putting pressure on Manatee, Hardee and some of the other counties that still have some phosphate bearing tracts. Hopefully, they will be able to fight it but I don't know if they can succeed.

Thanks - I never realize how much I remember about the phosphate business until something like this comes up. But when you grow up with your father living it every day, you absorb a lot of info.

[madfloridian]

4. And the citrus industry is being replaced by big developments....

They bring in more tax base. The citrus families don't like it, but FL developers are powerful now.

[csziggy]

7. Yeah, we're down to two orange groves

One, my dad helped his dad plant the trees in the late 1920s. The other, my parents bought on a shoestring in the 1950s. Neither have made much money ever - enough to pay expenses and property taxes. Every time it looked like they'd get in the clear, we'd have a freeze and have to replace trees.

You know, in the 1890s citrus grew as far north as Jacksonville in groves large enough to make money. But for commercially viable groves today, the freezes we get every ten to twenty years are simply too expensive, given the time it takes for the replacement trees to start bearing. Diseases are spreading especially since the 2004 hurricanes spread canker out of the areas where it had been quarantined. Water is harder to get as the water table and aquifers are under more pressure from rising populations.

Now one is across from a gold course community built on a former grove site. The other overlooks a lake and there are now developments going in around the lake. While we are still maintaining and harvesting the groves, with citrus canker and greening - both serious diseases spreading across the state - and property values and taxes going up every year, we know that the groves will not continue to pay their way indefinitely. Labor costs for fruit pickers are going up and the old co-operative groups that maintained and marketed the fruit are closing down.

I suspect that "Florida orange juice" will become a thing of the past sometime in the next twenty to thirty years. As it is, a lot of the content of frozen orange juice is imported from Brazil and other countries. And the sales of "fresh from the grove" Florida juice are not robust enough to support groves against the market pressures.

See, not all the citrus families are like Ben Hill Griffin's - Katherine Harris's granddaddy - a lot are just small owners with only a few acres in trees struggling to maintain them just like any small farmers.

[madfloridian]

8. Ben Hill also granddaddy to Katherine's legislative cousins, Baxter Troutman, J.D. Alexander

They have the money and the power still around here.

[csziggy]

9. Oh yes - I went to school with one of Ben Hill's granddaughters

She was OK and so was her Dad but her Mom, Ben Hill's daughter, was a bitch. I think my parents know Troutman - the name is familiar.

My little sister technically graduated from HS with Katherine Harris but never attended classes with her. Harris went to a private Catholic school until her Senior year when she attended the public HS. My sister was attending junior college on early admittance so was not in HS classes that year. But she got her HS diploma with her HS class at the same ceremony Harris did.

Are you in Polk? I grew up in Bartow and my parents are still there but I've been in Tallahassee since 1972.

[madfloridian]

5. Heading to court next week. .

And they are very sure they will win. And I am very sure they will win. Positive almost.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20081002/ARTICLE/810020367/2055/NEWS?Title=Mine_challenge_going_to_court

"Charlotte and Lee counties, along with a regional water provider, will go to court next week in the latest battle over a proposed 4,200-acre phosphate mine near the Peace River.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection approved the mine site in Hardee County, called Ona, in August 2006.

Charlotte and Lee counties and the Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority appealed the DEP's approval in state court, claiming the permit did not provide enough protection for the Peace River.

Arguments are scheduled for Wednesday in Tampa before the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

The river is a major water supply source for Charlotte, Sarasota and DeSoto counties and also flows into Charlotte Harbor, one of the state's most productive estuaries for fish and shellfish."

[madfloridian]

6. Dupe

.

[ddeclue]

10. Sovereign Immunity?

The state (which the county gov't is a unit of) has sovereign immunity and cannot be sued without its express permission.

This lawsuit will go nowhere unless Charlie Christ (sic) lets it. He's a Republican but he's not going to sign up the state for 618 million in liabilities when the state is going through rough economy by allowing the state to be sued.

Please send me a message by private message with your contact and more about the story. I know several state reps personally including one who is a big environmentalist and I will bring this to his attention if he doesn't already know.

Doug D.
Orlando, FL

[madfloridian]

11. Interesting. I never thought of that.

I was just doing a quick search and found that my non-legal mind was not sure what it was reading. I had never thought of that.

If true, someone should step in. Charlie, maybe when he gets done catering to the likes of McCain. Corporations that size could sue small counties and get whatever they wanted.

Right now the info in the article in the OP and in the comment is all I have...if I find out more I will let you know.

[ddeclue]

16. To paraphrase Dr. McCoy from Star Trek:

I'm an engineer not a lawyer dammit...

So I'm not expressing any kind of informed opinion, just another layman's opinion...

Doug D.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. This just leaves you numb sometimes.

[madfloridian]

13. It does.

The Florida Green Swamp and other wetlands are being systematically misused. Look at the Everglades and Lake Okeechobee. Frightening.

[barbtries]

14. do they own the land they're

suing over? i hope at some point more caring people fight back.

[madfloridian]

15. I am not sure of that. It is called the Altman tract.

I found this pdf about it, but even then is not clear to me. I think we are only beginning to find some of the damage left behind even on reclaimed land....for example in the aquifer and into the water supplies.

http://www.regionalwater.org/pdfs/September_2006_phosphate_updaterevised.pdf

I am sure of one thing...Mosaic will get what they want. Just like whoever owned Piney Point (Mulberry Corp. or Cargill) got to discharge their waste into Tampa Bay with impunity.

And they got to load it onto barges and dump in the Gulf of Mexico. With impunity. Looking for that article now.