20080868 Ver 2_Emails_20090115 (8)

State OKs mine's wetlands plan

Subject: State OKs mine's wetlands plan
From: susan massengale <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 16:07:36 -0500
To: DWQ Clips <[e-mail]>, Diana Kees <[e-mail]>, Al Hodge <[e-mail]>

From the Raleigh News and Observer

State OKs mine I s wetlands plan

By Wade Rawlins - Staff Writer

pes Phosphate of Aurora received the green light from state regulators to expand its mining of phosphate ore along the Pamlico River in
Beaufort County for another 35 years.

The revised plan, approved by state water quality regulators today I allows the company to mine about 11,000 acres adjacent to its current site.
It represents the largest destruction of wetlands in North Carolina's history ever granted in one permit, though regulators scaled back the
original plan.

Under federal law, the mining company must restore wetlands to replace those it destroys.

20090115 pes phosphate
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Photo Courtesy of PCS Phosphate Mine - Water from the PCS Phosphate Mine in Aurora spills into a canal leading to the Pamlico River.

The state's approval is a key step in the process of acquiring a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue mining. Under
federal law, a company can destroy wetlands if it shows its plan does the least environmental harm and is the most economically viable.

"That is what we have been waiting for," said Penny Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She said the agency was ready
to act. The rich deposit of black phosphate rock, left by ancient oceans and buried 100 feet beneath the surface, has been extracted from the
site by various companies for about 40 years. PCS has worked the mine since 1995 to get phosphate for fertilizer, animal feed supplements and
food additives such as phosphoric acid, a flavor enhancer in Coca-Cola and jellies.

The United States is one of the world's largest phosphate producers and 85 percent of the total domestic output comes from North Carolina and
Florida. In the last 15 years, the Aurora mine has produced 3.5 million tons to 6 million tons of phosphate a year.

PCS says there is enough phosphate at its presently permitted open pit mine to keep digging through 2011. pes sought permission to expand to
continue mining for nearly 50 years. Its original plan entailed mining through the headwaters of a number of creeks that flowed into South
Creek.

In December, state water quality regulators granted PCS a permit to proceed with mining, but PCS objected to some of its restrictions. Water
regulators had stipulated that the mining company avoid 213 acres of ecologically significant wetland hardwood forests on one tract and protect
the area with a conservation easement. Federal environmental officials had said that the area was a nationally significant wetland hardwood
forest and the entire tract should be protected. The mining company objected, saying it would lose 3.1 million tons of recoverable phosphate if
it couldn I t mine that hardwood forest area, It asked for permission to mine through a portion of the area, and the state agreed in the revised
permi t .

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