At the recent Public Meeting in Arcadia, Nancy and Brooks Armstrong presented an excellent overview of Better Farming Methods to ween ourselves off of the environmentally damaging overuse of applied fertilizer products. Brooks narrates a YouTube video by Gabe Brown. Please listen.
This presentation by Dennis Mader, introduced by Andy Mele, was delivered to a full-house audience on May 31, 2018 in Arcadia, DeSoto County, FL. Dennis discusses the fact that phosphate mining activities have been the subject of citizen protest for decades and continues on today.
Due to the terrific turnout at last nights meeting in Arcadia, we ran out of this list of websites for additional information on Regenerative Agriculture and Phosphate Mining.
This links to an article in the Tampa Bay Times dated May 28, 2018 by Craig Pittman. A update on the disaster two years ago.
As posted in the Sunday Port Charlotte Sun, this is notice of upcoming County meetings about phosphate mining permitting.
Letter to the Editor of the Arcadian April 26, 2018 posing several very important questions.
Come clean, DeSoto County commissioners
Mine reclamation is risky business. It’s like building a home on a Superfund site.
DeSoto County … protect yourself from phosphate mining. Rodeo arenas, (McSwain Park) splash-pad, donations and tax revenue are being accepted to allow Mosaic to pollute your water, land and air.
This is no laughing matter, commissioners. This is all common sense. Mosaic is giving you money for your water to dilute their carcinogens into the Horse Creek for the next 30 years.
Commissioners, tell me what the Peace River and Horse Creek will look like after Mosaic mines in Pine Level for 30 years.
Buddy Mansfield, Terry Hill, Judy Schaefer, Elton Langford and Jim Selph, all five of you will be responsible for the degradation of the Horse Creek. And if a cancer cluster should arise in Hidden Acres among the residents, you will be responsible for that too.
Remember Hidden Acres floods easily; Mosaic will not be able to keep their toxic chemicals off their property during a flood. Plus, decades of Mosaic diluting their pollution into the Horse Creek will contaminate the drinking water.
Phosphate mining is dirty business; there is nothing safe or clean about radioactive waste!
Mari Hollingsworth
Boone, North Carolina
This is a link to an April 9,2018 NPR News report by Dan Charles on the growing movement in “regenerative agriculture” including cover crops and no-till land management. There have to be solutions for sustainable farming. Strip mining for phosphate fertilizers is not a sustainable way to build soil health. Fresh approaches like this are the answer.
May we all stand and be accountable
Topic of the day … is phosphate [stripand- rape] mining good or bad for DeSoto County? Will the citizens be heard, or will their pleas fall on deaf ears dull of hearing? Will it be profit over people, again?
I wanted to make a public announcement that I pray for this county and all that goes on here. Nothing is done or said without God knowing. May we all stand and be accountable for ourselves now and for the future of DeSoto County and the surrounding county, especially those who get their drinking water from the low river/ Horse Creek through the Peace River/ Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority. Just how many wells, wetlands, flag ponds, sloughs, named and unnamed stream tributaries to the Peace River and Horse Creek, are within the proposed mining boundary in DeSoto County?
There is a scheduled planning/zoning board meeting in Arcadia on June 5-6. Please attend, thank you.
Molly Bowen
Arcadia
Fight to keep quality of life
Editor:
Water, it’s about water. What you drink, bath in and fill your pools with.
Horse Creek flows into the Peace River above the water plant. The poisons will end up in your water my Charlotte County friends. It will flow into the Harbor and kill it. What will that do to Sunseekers?
This proposed mining is not a Desoto County problem. It is a Florida problem.
The smoke from fires in the Everglades comes here, as does Sahara sand. As the crow flies, Pine Level is much closer, less than 20 miles away, the dust will impact you. It causes breathing problems and has radioactive properties.
Please pay attention and fight to keep your quality of life.
Candace Lawless
Arcadia