PLYMOUTH, Minn., April 11, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ —
The Mosaic Company (NYSE: MOS) announced that the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has vacated a preliminary injunction previously granted by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida regarding Mosaic’s South Fort Meade mine. The preliminary injunction had prevented reliance on a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit for the mining of wetlands in an extension of Mosaic’s South Fort Meade, Florida, phosphate rock mine in Hardee County. The Eleventh Circuit also set aside the District Court’s remand of the permit to the Corps of Engineers.
In vacating the preliminary injunction, the Court remanded the case to the District Court for a decision on the merits to determine, after a review of the full administrative record, whether the Corps came to a rational permit decision to be analyzed through the deferential lens mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act. The Court of Appeals also directed the District Court to stay the effectiveness of the permit for 90 days to permit the District Court to make a decision on the merits based on this deferential standard.
“We appreciate this timely ruling and are pleased with the outcome and directions provided by the Eleventh Circuit,” said Richard Mack, Mosaic’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel. “We look forward to presenting our case to the District Court as mandated by the Court of Appeals. The Hardee County Extension permit was an exhaustive, multi-year effort that resulted in the most extensively reviewed and environmentally protective phosphate mining permit in Florida’s history. We expect that our ongoing operations at South Fort Meade, together with other mitigation efforts, will be sufficient to support our finished phosphate production for the 90-day period set forth by the Court of Appeals.”