Month: May 2010

By JASON WITZ Correspondent

Published: Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.

NORTH PORT – Renewed worries about the impact of future phosphate mining have prompted city officials to consider asking state and federal regulatory agencies to assess the potential risks phosphate mining would have on the area’s water supply.

On Monday, the City Commission will recommend sending a letter urging the agencies to conduct an environmental impact statement before any permits are issued for mining on land controlled by the Mosaic Co. north of the city.

“The letter is basically saying, ‘Be careful,'” said David Garofalo, City Commission chairman. “We’re not taking a stance either way at this point, but this is our drinking water.”

Mosaic could potentially mine two sites, called Pine Level and Keys, spanning portions of Manatee and DeSoto counties in the Central Florida phosphate mining region known as the “Bone Valley.”

Garofalo said officials are concerned about the possible downstream impacts any mining there would have on the Myakkahatchee Creek, the city’s primary water source.

A Mosaic spokesman said the company has no pending applications with any agency to begin operations at the two sites. The company’s current operations are centered farther north, largely in the Peace River basin.

“It is in our long-term plans,” said Russell Schweiss.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has issued two general environment resource permits authorizing construction of a fence and 20 monitoring wells at the Pine Level site, west of Arcadia.

For the last three years, the Southwest Florida Water Management District in Bartow has been reviewing a water-use permit which would allow ground water withdrawals of up to 76 million gallons per day to supply all Mosaic sites, including a Pine Level mine.

Mosaic representatives reportedly told city staff in April its intent is to install a phosphate processing plant and develop the portion of the mines located within the Peace River watershed. Any actual mining at the sites in question would be at a “much later date,” the letter said.

This week, the DeSoto County planning commission opposed Mosaic’s proposal to amend the county’s comprehensive plan for land use. The matter will go before the DeSoto County Commission May 25 at 1 p.m.

Representatives of the Environmental Confederation of Southwest Florida, a regional coalition and longtime opponent of phosphate mining, question Mosaic’s intentions.

“We don’t trust them,” said Becky Ayech, president of the organization.

By Lucia Kassai

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Farmers in Brazil have teamed up to drill an area the size of New York for phosphate-based fertilizers, seeking to cut dependency on producers including Vale SA and Mosaic Co. after prices surged.

Farm groups representing about 4,500 soybean and cotton producers in Brazil bought drilling equipment worth about 500,000 reais ($270,000) to prospect for phosphate on 80,000 hectares (197,700 acres) in the center-western state of Mato Grosso. They plan to expand prospecting to another 400,000 hectares and drill 300 to 400 holes in the next 30 days, said Gilson Pinesso, the head of the project.

Mosaic and Vale, which agreed in January to pay $3.8 billion for Bunge’s fertilizer assets in Brazil, control 45 percent of the country’s fertilizer production, said Carlos Florence, the Fertilizer Distributors Association’s managing director. Phosphate prices have more than doubled in six years to about $266 a ton, Florence said by telephone from Sao Paulo.

“Farmers are in the hands of those companies,” Pinesso, owner of eight farms in the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, said in a May 4 interview in Sao Paulo. “We want our independence.”

The Mato Grosso Soybean Producers Association and the Mato Grosso Cotton Producers Association formed an exploration company, hired two geologists and 20 other people to conduct the prospecting, Pinesso said.

“We are looking for phosphate, but we may even run into gold here,” Pinesso said, while checking for soybean future prices on his iPhone. He was referring to the history of the state of Mato Grosso, which was developed after a gold rush in the 18th century.

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of sugar and coffee and the second-biggest for soybeans, trailing the U.S.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at [email protected]

Last Updated: May 7, 2010 17:30 EDT