PCS Phosphate announced April 10 that, due to continued permit delays, the Aurora, N.C., facility’s mining operations will idle one of its two bucket wheel excavators, effective April 20. The decision will affect 24 positions, which include 12 PCS Phosphate employees who will be reassigned to other parts of the site, and 12 contractors whose positions will be eliminated.
“Our mining operations are quickly approaching the end of our existing permit boundary,” said Steve Beckel, general manager of the PCS Phosphate Aurora facility. “We began the permitting process more than eight years ago in hopes of avoiding this situation.”
PCS said in 2008 that the area currently being mined has about four more years of use (GM Archives).
Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requested that the Assistant Secretary of the Army review the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to issue the necessary wetlands permit that will allow the company to continue mining (GM March 30, p. 12). PCS said this request will result in additional delays in the mine continuation permitting process.
“This has been a very difficult decision that impacts employees and contractors who have performed well,” Beckel said. “In an attempt to avoid additional negative impacts, we continue to diligently work with the appropriate state and federal officials, with the goal of ensuring all permits and authorizations are issued as soon as possible.”
Calling it a “rare decision,” by the EPA regional office, the Southern Environmental Law Center applauded the EPA action. “EPA’s concerns are merited since PCS Phosphate’s current proposal would do irreversible and long-term damage to the environment, fisheries and public health,” said Geoff Gisler, SELC attorney. “As EPA points out, alternatives for mining can be found that wouldn’t wreak the destruction currently sought by PCS Phosphate.”
EPA’s Region Four director, based in Atlanta, had sent a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Wilmington, N.C., saying that it should put a hold on any expansion permit for PCS Phosphates’ Aurora, N.C., phosphate rock mine. This came after the Corps notified the EPA office of its plans to proceed on the permit.
The Atlanta office said it requested a review of the permit by EPA’s Office of Water and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. During this review, the permit should be held in abeyance pending completion of the review process, according to the letter from Acting Regional Administrator A. Stanley Meiburg.
“EPA remains concerned that the proposed project will result in unacceptable adverse impacts to aquatic resources of national importance, including direct and indirect impacts to waters of the U.S. which support the Albemarle Pamlico National Estuary Program area,” said Meiburg. He said EPA believes there are less environmentally damaging practicable alternatives for mining the project site that would avoid and minimize impacts to important wetland and stream resources. He said there are also concerns regarding the adequacy of the proposed compensatory mitigation to offset any authorized impacts.
Meiburg said he recognized the need for a timely decision. He added, however, that critical issues remain unresolved and his office does not support issuance of a permit for the project as currently proposed.
PotashCorp, the parent of PCS Phosphates, said it remains hopeful that the permit will be issued by the end of the second quarter. Back in January, the company had been hoping for a final Corps decision by the end of April (GM Jan. 29, 2009).
The N.C. Division of Water Quality issued a permit in January to allow the company to mine about 11,000 acres adjacent to its current mine. Several environmental groups had just announced earlier this month that they would appeal that decision to a state administrative court. That appeal was made by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the Environmental Defense Fund, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, and the North Carolina Sierra Club. The groups say the expansion impacts 4.8 miles of streams and more than 3,900 acres of wetlands, representing the largest destruction of wetlands ever permitted in the state.