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pes Phosphate gets its DWQ certification
Subject: PCS Phosphate gets its DWQ certification
From: susan massengale <susan.massengale@ncmai1.net>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:35:21 -0500
To: DWQ Clips <DENR.DWQ.Clips@lists.ncmail.net>
From the Washington Daily News
PCS Phosphate gets its DWQ certification
Move clears the wayfor Army Corps permit
By TED STRONG
Staff Writer
The N.C. Division of Water Quality is calling it a decision that makes everyone
happy. PCS Phosphate is treating it as a reluctantly accepted compromise.
Either way, the state has issued a revised water quality certification for the
company's bid to vastly expand its mine-and-plant complex in Aurora.
"After initial review, although it's not what we would have preferred, this 401
water quality certification issued by the Division of Water Quality appears to be
acceptable," said PCS Phosphate spokeswoman Michelle Vaught. "We are pleased to have
reached this milestone, and we continue to be cautiously optimistic that we will
receive all permits and authorizes within the first quarter of this year."
The expansion of PCS Phosphate, which is a subsidiary of a Canadian minerals
conglomerate, has been a lightning rod for controversy in recent years.
One local environmental group criticized the Division of Water Quality's decision.
"The North Carolina Division of Water Quality ._ has failed to protect the citizens'
resources," reads a statement from the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation (PTRF).
This 401 water quality certification was the last major hurdle the company faced
before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can draft a decision on a federal permit
for the expansion.
"On a cursory review, we have a document we can move forward with," said Tom Walker
of the Corps of Engineers.
He said it's impossible to know exactly when a decision will come.
"We're going to move it as expeditiously as possible, and we fully realize the
time-sensitivity of this issue," Walker said.
The next potential obstacle would be a separate decision by an outside agency.
Several federal agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, must sign
off on the Corps of Engineers' decision. If they object, they can force the Corps of
Engineers' national office to review the decision, a process that lasts 45 days.
"The county is ecstatic.that the company navigated this first permitting hurdle,"
said Beaufort County Manager Paul Spruill. "We're hopeful that the federal
regulatory agencies will respect the (decision) issued by the Corps of Engineers
and refrain from elevating the decision to Washington, D.C., in order that our
economy can remain intact locally."
A wide variety of elected officials, including Beaufort County commissioners, have
passed resolutions and sent letters to regulatory agencies backing the company,
which is the largest employer in Beaufort Count with more than 1,000 employees.
Vaught thanked the community and the elected officials for their support.
The company had objected to an early 401 certification that allowed them to clear a
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pes Phosphate gets its DWQ certification
small corridor in a hardwoods wetland to allow them to move equipment across it,
but banned any mining in the sensitive area.
The company felt the strategy would be too expensive, in part because it would have
to construct massive ramps to move its equipment from the mine pits up to the
travel corridor, said John Dorney, supervisor of the wetlands program's development
unit at the N.C. Division of Water Quality.
Under the new proposal, the county can mine a strip through the narrowest section of
the wetland.
"They get the mining corridor, which saves them $6 million, and the nationally
significant wetland is still protected," Dorney said.
Because the giant trench will fragment the wetland, PCS Phosphate will have to do
substantial work to revitalize the corridor and reconnect the different parts of
the wetland once it has mined through it, Dorney said.
Susan Massengale, a Division of Water Quality spokeswoman, said the agency made the
decision after PCS Phosphate pled its case.
"We just needed more information from PCS Phosphate, and when we got that
information, that allowed us to make this decision," she said.
The wetland in question is west of the company's present mine. Concerns about
wetlands east of the mine, where the company also wants to expand, attracted
controversy earlier in the roughly eight-year permitting process.
Dorney said other provisions of the certification will require vigilant monitoring
of water quality in the small creeks near the mine to ensure they maintain their
chemical and biological characters.
He said, "We want to be sure that those streams still function like primary
nurseries."
But the PTRF maintains those provisions aren't strict enough.
Their statement read: "The 401 certification does not adequately minimize
environmental damage or assess and manage the long-term negative consequences as
required by state law. DWQ has avoided their responsibilities, and we are left
wondering why."
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