The Mosaic Co. confirmed that the temporary restraining order issued by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Jacksonville Division (GM, July 12, p. 11), that keeps it from proceeding with its new permit for an expansion at the South Fort Meade phosphate rock mine has been extended from Wednesday, July 28, to Friday, July 30. It was not clear if a decision would come before or after the Green Markets press deadline.
U.S. Senior District Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. said the order should remain in effect up to and including July 30. On July 27 he struck Mosaic’s rebuttal memorandum for not being typed in twelve-point or larger type. He gave Mosaic until 3:00 p.m. on July 28 to comply, and they did so.
On July 23, Mosaic Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary Richard Mack told analysts that there is a high bar on a party requesting such an action, and that the court normally provides substantial deference to the federal agencies who actively reviewed and approved the permit. “Let me assure you that the Army Corps of Engineers, along with several county, state, and other federal agencies, exhaustively reviewed the permit applications over a seven-year period,” he said. “In fact, the process included dozens of in-depth meetings with regulators and numerous requests for additional information, and resulted in an administrative record in excess of 100,000 pages and a final permit exceeding 2,500 pages. This was comprehensive.”
Mack said the permit provides for significant protections to the environment, including preservation of more than 73 percent of the site’s wetlands, over 2,600 acres of permanent conservation easements, and a robust mitigation plan using state-of-the-art reclamation practices. “The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, who also extensively reviewed and approved the permit, has characterized the South Fort Meade tract in question as heavily degraded and has said that it will be in a better environmental condition after mining and reclamation have been completed.”
The plaintiffs argued to the court that Mosaic should only be allowed to mine on the upland area of the reserve. Mosaic responded that this was only a ruse to scuttle the entire project, as mining only the uplands was not feasible and was regarded as impracticable by the Corps. If only uplands were mined, said Mosaic, it would limit mining to a very small area – only about 1,000 acres – and strand the remaining 46 million tons of phosphate reserves.
As for the wetlands, Mosaic said that over the past 30 years it has successfully constructed over 21,000 acres of wetlands and has received numerous awards for its successes. The company presented photos to the court as evidence.
Judge Adams issued the restraining order July 1 (GM, July 12, p. 11). The Mosaic Co. on July 12 issued a conditional warn notice to 221 mine employees advising them that in 60 days the company’s South Fort Meade mine may close indefinitely (GM, July 19, p. 1).
Mosaic President and CEO James Prokopanko told analysts July 23 that the situation regarding the mine would not have any impact whatsoever on first-quarter results. Prokopanko told analysts that it might make sense to use newly-acquired Bayovar, Peru, rock to take the place of South Fort Meade rock. However, he said that while the company is doing a lot of contingency planning, it was still too premature to comment on that at the present time.