Florida Counties Try to Contain Phosphate Mines

PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — Arguing that the State Environmental Protection Department is far too lax in regulating open-pit phosphate mines, three Gulf Coast counties are spending millions of dollars in an effort to keep the mines from further expansion in a major watershed.
Officials of Charlotte, Lee and Sarasota Counties along with the regional water authority, worry that the mines, in the central region of Florida, will decrease the quantity and quality of water in the Peace River, a major contributor to the counties’ water supplies.

The counties point to the river’s importance to Charlotte Harbor, an estuary fed by the Peace River.

“Our whole local economy is driven by the harbor,” said Janette Knowlton, a lawyer for Charlotte County.

Little known outside Florida, phosphate mining has been a major contributor to the regional economy since the 1930s, accounting for 75 percent of phosphate used in the United States, mostly in fertilizer.

Two large companies, Mosaic Fertilizer and CF Industry Holdings, operate most of the open pit phosphate mines in Hardee and Polk Counties. At the mines, cranes dig a mixture of phosphate, sand and clay that is generally below 15 to 30 feet of topsoil and sand. The material is dumped into a nearby pit and blasted with high pressure water to create a slurry that is pumped through pipes to a plant for final separation of the phosphate. The leftover clay-water mixture is dumped into other pits that become ponds. Today, the ponds dot the landscape. The sand is used to help fill the pits after mining.
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