Water quality permit questioned for phosphate mine

March 18, 2009 by Jeff Aydelette

The sprawling open pit mine of PCS Phosphate north of Aurora in Beaufort County needs a variety of state and federal permits to expand operations to nearby tracts.

Environmental groups have challenged a water quality permit issued in January by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality. The decree by the state agency, unless reversed, removes an important obstacle confronting PCS Phosphate in its years-long attempt to win state and federal approval for continued mining.

The Chapel Hill-based Southern Environmental Law Center, also acting on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund, North Carolina Coastal Federation, Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, and North Carolina Sierra Club, wants a state administrative court to rescind, or drastically modify the permit.
The groups allege the agency has not properly complied with existing state law and regulations designed to protect the environment.
Over the next three decades, PCS wants to mine large areas north of Aurora in Beaufort County. All concede the mining will destroy wetlands and streams that feed the Pamlico River and eventually Pamlico Sound. However, the Canadian conglomerate has pledged to ‘mitigate’ any and all environmental impacts identified by state and federal regulators.
In many cases, the company attempts to reclaim damaged acres and stream footage at a ratio greater than 1 to 1. Money spent to either rehabilitate mined territory or to create wetlands elsewhere becomes a cost of doing business -- like labor and electricity.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will have the final say-so in the controversy, which has pitted one state agency against another . While the Division of Water Quality has given its blessings, another state agency -- the Division of Marine Fisheries -- has rejected the project as proposed.
In a June 26, 2008, letter to the Corps, Mac Currin, chairman of the Marine Fisheries Commission, disputed the ability of PCS to adequately restore damaged wetlands.
“The loss of wetlands eliminates their filtering effect that would otherwise maintain water quality at a high level, critical to the propagation and productivity of estuarine organisms,” he wrote. “While mitigation of these impacts is theoretically possible, no available alternatives to offset these effects are available locally. We see no convincing evidence that impacts to Primary Nursery Areas can be mitigated.”
For any state agency to give a thumbs down to one of the state’s largest private employers is always difficult -- even more so in dire economic times. In a recent filing, one PCS official alluded to the potentially devastating effects on the local economy should the mine cease operations.
“We are approaching the point at which delays in permitting will result in unavoidable interruption in mining activities and severe economic impacts,” he wrote.

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