HomeMy WebLinkAbout20080868 Ver 2_Emails_20080711PCS Phosphate awaits decision
Subject: PCS Phosphate awaits decision
From: susan massengale <susan.massengale@ncmail.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:09:09 -0500
To: DWQ Clips <DENR.DWQ.Clips@lists.ncmail.net>
From the Washington Daily News
PCS Phosphate awaits decision
Comment period on permit request comes to and end
By TED STRONG
Staff Writer
After years of wrangling and with some work-force reductions already made, the
battle over whether PCS Phosphate should be given a permit to expand its mine near
Aurora is more or less down to a month or two of waiting for a decision.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stopped accepting comment on its
final environmental impact statement regarding the permit request. It should issue
a decision by mid-September, said Tom Walker, project manager for the Corps of
Engineers.
The application from PCS Phosphate, the local subsidiary of a Canadian minerals
company, has drawn attention because of its scope - encompassing roughly 4,000 acres
- and because it proposes expanding the mine into environmentally sensitive areas
east of the company's existing facility, which includes a mine and plants to process
and ship the phosphate it produces.
If granted, the expansion would be the largest wetlands impact on a single
application in North Carolina history, although the impact would be spread over 37
years, Walker said.
"There's really not anything to compare it to," he said.
Environmental groups have used tougher language in their descriptions, with the
Pamlico-Tar River Foundation calling it the "largest wetland destruction in N.C.
history."
The Corps of Engineers' staff will examine the comments it has received about the
plan, and then meet once more with company officials. Some comments are still being
sent to Walker from Wilmington, but he expects there to be about 25, mostly from
government agencies that routinely comment on Corps of Engineers' permits or groups
and people that have commented throughout the process, like the Pamlico-Tar River
Foundation and the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Comment periods at earlier milestones in the decision-making process have drawn
hundreds of comments, including some from elected officials including N.C. Senate
President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole and Washington Mayor Judy
Meier Jennette. All of the government officials have supported the application, many
noting the company's economic impact and praising its efforts to protect the
environment.
After the Corps of Engineers' meeting with company officials, the final decision
will be the only step remaining in the process, which was started early in 2001.
In June, company officials said that fewer contractors are being employed by the
mine as it waits to see if the expansion will be allowed. Eventually, the wait could
push the mine to a staged shutdown, company officials have said.
Walker expects it will take 30 to 60 days for a decision to be made.
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PCS Phosphate awaits decision
The Corps of Engineers could decide to grant the permit, deny the application or
take no action, a decision that would spare the company the difficulties of
reapplying if denial looked imminent, Walker said. The Corps of Engineers and the
company have said a nondecision would be undesirable, but the option remains on the
table, Walker said.
But one company official is more optimistic.
"I'm confident that the Corps will issue a permit. ... The question yet to be
answered is `What area will be we be allowed to mine?," said Ross Smith, PCS
Phosphate's manager for environmental affairs.
If a permit is granted, company officials believe it will have all the ancillary
permits it needs from other agencies by December, Smith said.
The group has already started applying for some of those permits, and it is talking
with other agencies it will need to deal with, such as the N.C. Mining Commission
and the state Division of Land Resources, Ross said.
Heather Jacobs, PTRF's riverkeeper, filed a comment in the latest round on behalf of
PTRF. She said the group had raised concerns it had already brought to the Corps of
Engineers, and she also said PTRF members have been unhappy with previous comment
periods.
"Part of our comments were that we believe that the Corps of Engineers has failed to
respond to substantive comments," she said.
An area of concern is the analysis of the economic effect different mine footprints
would hav2 on the company, she said. PCS Phosphate employs more than 1,000 full-time
workers, along with several hundred contractors.
Another key concern, she said, is the company's plans to mitigate for the wetlands
it would damage with the expansion. Jacobs is worried a lenient decision for PCS
Phosphate could be used as a reason to demand less from other similar applicants.
"You don't want to have precedent-setting type variances approved," she said.
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