20080868 Ver 2_Washington Daily News_20090319

PCS stands by validity of water-quality permit
Subject: PCS stands by validity of water-quality permit
From: Susan Massengale <Susan. Massengale@ncmail. net>
Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:30:53 -0400
To: DWQ Clips <[e-mail]>
From the Washington Daily News
PCS stands by validity of water-quality permit
Environmentalists challenge expansion of PCS operation
By TED STRONG
Staff Writer
A PCS Phosphate official has offered the company's first detailed response to a
challenge to a key state permit.
A coalition of environmentalists recently appealed a water-quality certification
the company needs for federal approval to expand its Aurora facility.
Ross Smith, PCS Phosphate manager of environmental affairs, reaffirmed his faith in
the challenged permit.
"I still believe that the Division of Water Quality's water-quality certification is
a strong document," he said.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' official Tom Walker, who is coordinating the review of
the PCS Phosphate proposal, said the appeal hasn't affected the federal permitting
process.
And because the filing technically challenges the state for issuing the permit -
not PCS Phosphate - the company has stayed out of the proceedings, Smith said. He
added, though, that the company may eventually be involved to some degree.
The environmental groups contend in their filing that the state's analysis of the
costs of alternatives to mining lands was insufficient and did not project far
enough into the future. PCS Phosphate contends that avoiding more wetlands would be
too costly. The DWQ used an analysis completed by the Corps of Engineers before PCS
Phosphate extended the timeframe of the project.
"That practicality evaluation was based on extensive amounts of information," Smith
said, referring to the DWQ analysis.
The environmental groups also contend that DWQ bent state rules to approve PCS
Phosphate's mitigation plan for stream banks it anticipates destroying as it expands
its mine. They say PCS Phosphate can't find enough suitable sites to perform the
required mitigation, which involves building new wetlands to replace damaged ones.
Smith said the permit requires PCS Phosphate to find more areas where it can perform
mitigation before it mines the wetlands in question.
"The buffers (stream edges) are adequately protected there because of that
limitation (requiring more mitigation be found before certain wetlands be mined)
within the water-quality plan," he said.
The environmental groups' appeal will follow the same path as a dispute about a PCS
Phosphate quality permit that was decided earlier this month.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service challenged a permit that allowed PCS Phosphate to
build a new a sulfuric-acid plant, alleging the state's Department of Environment
and Natural Resources used the wrong kind of modeling to analyze the new plant's
effect on visibility at the Swan Quarter Wilderness Area.
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PCS stands by validity of water-quality permit
After PCS Phosphate provided new modeling using FWS criteria, the challenge to the
permit was dropped.
But the two agencies, N.C. DENR and the U.S. FWS, continued their fight about how
the modeling initially should have been done.
FWS won a victory earlier this month, when a judge at the state's Office of
Administrative Hearings offered an opinion in its favor. The judge's recommendation
must now be considered by the state's Environmental Management Commission.
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