Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Neighborhood Report

County changes mind on mine expansion

The commission adds a clause to an agreement allowing Tampa Bay Water to keep tabs on Mosaic Fertilizer's operations for a year.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published April 21, 2006

The County Commission, which tried last year to stop the world's largest phosphate mining company from expanding its Hopewell mine, has reversed itself.

The commission agreed last week that Mosaic Fertilizer's mining plans do not violate the county's water-protection ordinance. The decision means Mosaic's plans can move forward.

The debate turned on one question: does phosphate mining constitute "excavation," which is prohibited under the ordinance?

Officials at Tampa Bay Water said it does.

"We think the record leading up to the adoption of the ordinance is very clear, that phosphate mining is ... a prohibited activity," Tampa Bay Water's Ron Noble told the commission. "We'd like to see the county defend that ordinance."

The region's water supplier objected to the mine's expansion, saying the ordinance was crafted to prevent phosphate mining in areas where contaminants could make their way to the Alafia River and public drinking water.

But Mosaic disagreed.

"Phosphate mining is clearly a separately defined activity in the land use code from excavation," said David Townsend, Mosaic's spokesman.

Mosaic first applied last spring to expand its 24-year-old Hopewell mine by 671 acres.

The new mining operation will take up land south of State Road 60 and east of County Road 39, bordering the Alafia River.

The county denied the application, citing its 2004 water-protection ordinance. Excavation near surface water is prohibited under the ordinance, the county said, including phosphate mining.

In January, Mosaic filed a lawsuit in Hillsborough Circuit Court against the county, asking a judge to declare that phosphate mining was not prohibited under the ordinance.

Before Circuit Judge Perry Little could hear the case, county commissioners and Mosaic settled out of court, agreeing that Mosaic could continue its application as long as it promised to provide "reasonable assurance" that its mining operation would not contaminate groundwater.

Last week, the commission approved a final version of the eight-page agreement, after adding a clause allowing Tampa Bay Water to monitor Mosaic's operations for a year.

The water officials had asked to be allowed to monitor Mosaic for two years.

"It's certainly not what we wanted at the beginning, but we're willing to accept what we have at this time," said Jon Kennedy, Tampa Bay Water's chief engineer. "What we got was more than what we started with, and frankly I think it's a good positive first step."

Townsend said the agreement protects citizens as well as the original water-protection ordinance did.

"In no way does the settlement agreement relax standards that apply to phosphate mining," he said. Nor, he said, does it "diminish public scrutiny of future mining."

However, the settlement may have established the precedent that the county's water-protection ordinance does not prohibit phosphate mining.

"There's definitely been a precedent established, and that precedent will have to be monitored very closely," Kennedy said.

As part of the settlement agreement, the county will rewrite the ordinance to explicitly allow for - and regulate - phosphate mining near surface water sources.

The agreement was passed by a 5-1 vote, with Commissioner Kathy Castor the sole dissenter.

Castor said she felt the spirit of the original ordinance was disregarded to suit Mosaic's needs.

"It was obvious in the adoption of the ... protection ordinance that it was intended to be as broad as possible and protect the drinking water supply, to make sure it is clean and healthy," she said.

"Then it became clear that it had a negative impact on the Mosaic business."

To change the ordinance now, she said, "seems like it's going backwards."

Commissioner Ronda Storms, who also sits on the Tampa Bay Water board, said that the water officials had not been able to offer any evidence that phosphate mining could pollute the river.

"Tampa Bay Water has a very, very serious credibility problem in this particular situation," she said, "and I am not persuaded by it."

"There's another agenda going on here," Storms added, "and it has nothing whatsoever to do with any supposed concerns about the safety of groundwater."

She didn't say what the hidden agenda was. But she suggested it might involve a threat to the nation's food supply, which is dependent on fertilizer.

"If we think we have a national security problem as it relates to oil, then we should wait and see what we do when we have a national security problem as it relates to food."

S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at 661-2442 or srosenbaum@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 20, 2006, 12:46:36]