While The Mosaic Co. may officially be on the verge of closing its South Fort Meade mine due to a U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida injunction issued earlier in the summer (GM Aug. 9, p. 14), the Court is still weighing a Mosaic motion to allow it to mine the permitted area for four months.
Mosaic, in a motion filed last month, is seeking a limited stay to allow mining to proceed in Phase 1 of its existing mine plan. It argues that because 8.79 acres of wetlands in Phase 1 were already disturbed prior to the entry of the temporary restraining order, there will be no additional wetland impacts if the Court grants the stay. Mosaic says it will restore the impacted wetlands. Absent the stay, it says more than 200 jobs will immediately be lost, with serious resulting consequences. The company also says other jobs indirectly related to the mine will be lost in the local community. Mosaic argues that the balance of equities weigh heavily in favor of granting the stay.
The plaintiffs – the Sierra Club, People for Protecting the Peace River Inc., and Manasota-88 Inc. ?Çô are opposed to Mosaic’s request for four months of mining, saying the Phase 1 plan would involve strip mining 200 acres, and that for the Court to grant the motion, Mosaic must show that its case has strong merits, and that it has not done so.
The plaintiffs, citing Mosaic’s financial records, say it does not have to lay off more than 200 employees. It noted that Mosaic reported $2.5 billion in cash and cash equivalents as of May 31, 2010, and net earnings of $396.1 million for the fourth quarter ending May 31. In addition, the plaintiffs say that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that the mining would actually have a net negative impact on employment in Hardee County.
As for the wetlands destruction that already occurred on the permit site, the plaintiffs say it was done pursuant to a permit that the Court found was issued unlawfully, which raises serious questions about the legality of allowing Mosaic to compound that harm with additional mining impacts.
“Mosaic should not be allowed to skirt the injunction by mining a part of the project under an unlawful permit,” said the plaintiffs. “Parties are not allowed to break projects into smaller component projects to avoid environmental laws, which in essence is what Mosaic is proposing.”
The plaintiffs say Mosaic can mine the uplands, and that that will allow up to two years of productive mining of over 1,000 acres. While mining only the upland portion of the permitted area is not Mosaic’s preferred route, the Court will allow it. Mosaic says to do so would take six months or longer to develop a new mining plan and to get state and local approvals. Mosaic says it would not be economical in the short-term, but it is now an option listed in its motion as a possibility.
On Aug. 20, Mosaic laid off 140 Florida mine workers. They were part of the 221 on a WARN notice Mosaic issued back in July (GM July 19, p. 1). The workers, who were idle, will still be paid through the duration of the notice period, which ended Sept. 10. More workers are expected to be laid off in coming weeks, but are being retained now for the mothballing of facilities and the shipping of existing rock.