The state says a plan to reclaim wetlands with a large marsh is inadequate. The decision could jeopardize other phosphate mines.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published September 16, 2003
In a ruling that could alter the way phosphate mining companies do business in Florida, the state's top environmental regulator on Monday rejected a mining permit for a Manatee County project because the plans did not call for fully restoring the wetlands that would be destroyed.
The decision concerned a 2,300-acre mine proposed by IMC-Agrico just south of the Hillsborough County line. But the state Department of Environmental Protection will now re-evaluate its approval of a far larger IMC mine, a 24,000-acre project proposed for Hardee County.
Both proposed mines lie in the headwaters of Horse Creek, which feeds the Peace River. The river runs into the Gulf of Mexico in Charlotte County. Charlotte officials had filed a legal challenge to both mining projects because they feared the impact on the harbor's billion-dollar fishing, tourism and recreation industries.
Last month an administrative judge agreed with Charlotte County on the smaller of the two mines, ruling that IMC's mining would destroy 600 acres of wetlands and the company's plans to repair the damage were inadequate.
In a 54-page order issued late Monday, DEP Secretary David Struhs agreed with the judge. He rejected the permit issued by his own agency.
"The plan proposed by IMC to reclaim the land was inadequate," he said in a prepared statement.
Ed de la Parte, the Tampa attorney who represented Charlotte County, said it's time the DEP stood up to a phosphate company. He said Struhs was "right on" about the wetlands, noting that IMC had proposed replacing a diverse network of shrub marshes, freshwater marshes and wet prairies with one large, relatively deep marsh - hardly the same thing the mining would destroy.
IMC spokeswoman Diana Youmans said company officials had not had time to review Struhs' decision. She did not know whether IMC will attempt to overturn the decision in court or will revamp its permit application to comply with Struhs' ruling.
