Category: Letters and Submissions

Former Jeb Bush staffer goes to work at Mosaic

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By Virginia Chamlee | 08.02.11 | 10:58 am

Mark Kaplan, former chief of staff to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has been announced as the new vice president of public affairs for The Mosaic Company, one of the top dogs in phosphate and nutrient production in the country.

Kaplan previously led Mosaic’s Florida public affairs team. A phosphate mine in South Fort Meade, owned by Mosaic, has been in hot water in recent months. Although the company was initially given the go-ahead from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to strip-mine thousands of acres of Florida wetlands, a lawsuit led a judge to halt production at a 700-acre tract of the mine, over fears that the mining activities were damaging two area watersheds.

The suit, which was brought by environmental groups including the Sierra Club, cost both jobs and money. In July, a U.S. judge extended the injunction, effectively banning the company from expanding production at the mine and pushing its stock down 5.2 percent. Following the injunction, Mosaic execs estimated that the ruling would cost them $200 million in annual costs, because it would have to buy more phosphate rock on the open market. The company has since cut that estimate in half.

Kaplan was appointed to the state’s Board of Education in 2010 by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. He resigned from the board last month.

US Mosaic Seeks New Sources of Phosphate as Litigation Continues
http://www.icis.com/Articles/2011/07/19/9478675/corrected-us-mosaic-seeks-new-sources-of-phosphate-as-litigation-continues.html
HOUSTON (ICIS)–US fertilizer company Mosaic will continue to look for ways to get more out of existing mines and find new sources of phosphate to make up for the deficit created by ongoing litigation related to its South Fort Meade mine in Florida, the company said on Tuesday.
The South Fort Meade mine is one of the largest phosphate mines in the world, producing about 6m tonnes/year of the fertilizer. It represents a third of Mosaic’s phosphate production, as well as 4% of the world’s production.
A US district judge recently ordered Mosaic to stop all operations at the mine. At issue is Mosaic’s permit from the US Army Corps of Engineers to expand the mine.
“Our first opportunity is to look at our other operations and maximise output from them,” said James O’Rourke, executive vice president of operations, during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call.

For example, a debottlenecking project at Mosaic’s Four Corners mine in Florida has produced 20% more phosphate.
In addition, Mosaic will get about 1m tonnes of phosphate from its Miski Mayo joint venture in Peru, which the company plans to expand.
Mosaic CEO Jim Prokopanko said they are also continually evaluating future mine sites.
“There’s not a deposit in the world we are not aware of,” he said. “Every week it seems we get a proposal asking us to look at this deposit or that deposit.”
For more on Mosaic visit ICIS company intelligence

By: Bobbie Clark
+1 713 525 2653

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/19/mosaic-idUSN1E76I0OO20110719

* Previously forecast higher costs of $200 million
* Expects ruling on injunction appeal by the fall
* Mosaic shares up 4 percent in midday trading (Adds executive quotes, byline; updates stock)
By Ernest Scheyder
NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) – Mosaic Co (MOS.N) has cut in half the estimated cost of a judge’s ruling that keeps the fertilizer producer from expanding a Florida phosphate mine.
Last week a U.S. judge extended an injunction that keeps Mosaic from expanding production at its South Fort Meade, Fla., mine. [ID:nL3E7IB1V6]
Just after the ruling was issued, Mosaic said it could increase its annual costs by $200 million as it would need to buy more phosphate rock on the open market.
On a conference call with investors on Tuesday to discuss the company’s quarterly earnings, Mosaic executives said the damage could now be $100 million due to excess phosphate capacity they have found at other Mosaic mines.
“The analysis that we’ve gone through suggests that we are going to be able to mitigate more of the impact than we first thought possible,” Larry Stranghoener, Mosaic’s chief financial officer, said on the conference call. “We believe we can significantly mitigate what otherwise might have been a worst-case situation in terms of purchased rock.”
Mosaic processes mined phosphate rock into pebble and fine phosphate, which are turned into diammonium phosphate, or DAP. That is what farmers use in their fields.
Effectively, Mosaic’s mining operation sells phosphate rock to its fertilizer production operation. If its own supply were dented, Mosaic would have to buy from competitors, a situation executives would like to avoid.
Mosaic has asked a higher U.S. court to cancel the injunction, though the company does not expect a ruling until the fall.
The South Fort Meade, Fla., mine has about 15 years of phosphate reserves and produces 6.5 million tons of the fertilizer each year. That represents a third of Mosaic’s yearly phosphate capacity and 4 percent of the world’s.
Shares of Mosaic were up 4.0 percent to $69.12 in midday trading on Tuesday. On Monday the company reported earnings that beat expectations. [ID:nN1E76H1LJ] (Reporting by Ernest Scheyder, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

http://news.ufl.edu/2011/05/11/water-purification/

UF researchers develop method to remove phosphate from water, using biochar

Filed under Environment, Florida, Research on Wednesday, May 11, 2011.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Phosphate poses one of Florida’s ongoing water-quality challenges but a process developed by University of Florida researchers could provide an affordable solution, using partially burned organic matter called biochar to remove the mineral.

The process also yields methane gas usable as fuel and phosphate-laden carbon suitable for enriching soil, according to Bin Gao and Pratap Pullammanappallil, assistant professors in UF’s agricultural and biological engineering department, part of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Crop wastes would provide raw material for the biochar.

A laboratory study demonstrating the effectiveness of biochar for phosphate removal appears in the current issue of the journal Bioresource Technology.

The study involved beet tailings, which are culled beets, scraps and weeds removed from shipments of sugar beets destined for processing to make sugar, said Gao, one of the authors. In the U.S., sugar beets are grown primarily in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but the technology can be adapted to other materials, he said. “It’s really sustainable,” Gao said. “We will see if it can be commercialized.”

UF has filed a patent application for the phosphate-removal process, Gao said. Wastewater treatment facility representatives have shown interest in the technology, he said.

Phosphate is used to make fertilizers, pesticides and detergents. Florida produces about one-fourth of the world’s phosphate. Florida’s surface waters sometimes contain large amounts of phosphate, arising from natural sources or human activity. Because the chemical can spur algae growth, it has caused water-quality concerns in some communities.

Some water treatment plants filter phosphate from wastewater but existing methods have drawbacks, including high cost, low efficiency and hazardous byproducts.

In the study, researchers started by collecting solid residues left after beet tailings were fermented in a device called an anaerobic digester, which yields methane gas. The material was baked at about 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit to make biochar.

The biochar was added to a water-and-phosphate solution and mixed for 24 hours. It removed about three-fourths of the phosphate, much better results than researchers obtained with other compounds, including commercial water-treatment materials. The phosphate-laden biochar can be applied directly to soils as a slow-release fertilizer. The research team plans to investigate whether biochar could remove nitrogen from wastewater. Nitrogen can stimulate algae growth in surface water.

The research team has also been testing the potential for biochar to purify water of heavy metals including lead and copper, he said. Part of the challenge involves pinpointing raw materials with the greatest affinity for a particular contaminant. And used biochar packed with toxic metals would have to be regenerated or handled as hazardous waste.

Previous UF studies have demonstrated the potential value of producing methane gas by fermenting crop waste. Pullammanappallil specializes in this area and regularly collaborates with Gao on biochar studies.

Perhaps the biggest challenge researchers face is making biomass technology more cost-effective. Pullammanappallil recently helped design, build and operate an anaerobic digester at an American Crystal Sugar Company facility in Moorhead, Minn.

The digester processed beet tailings like those used in the study, and worked well, said Dave Malmskog, the company’s business development director at Moorhead. But when the research grant funding the project ended, the company found it wasn’t practical to continue.

Nonetheless, the researchers remain optimistic that the process can be made cost-effective.

“Florida agricultural industries could benefit,” Pullammanappallil said. “You could do this with any biomass — sugarcane bagasse, citrus pulp.”

Writer Tom Nordlie, [email protected] ,352-273-3567
Source Bin Gao, [email protected], 352-392-1864 ext. 285
Source Pratap Pullammanappallil, [email protected], 352-392-1864 ext. 203

NEW YORK, May 18 (Reuters) – Fertilizer producer CF Industries Holdings Inc (CF.N) has benefited from rival Mosaic’s (MOS.N) legal troubles at a Florida phosphate mine expansion, CF’s CEO said on Tuesday.
Last summer, the Sierra Club environmental group sued to stop Mosaic from expanding phosphate rock production at its mine in South Fort Meade, Florida. The group claims the surface mining process damages the Florida watershed. CF, which operates a nearby mine, has so far been spared the legal scrutiny mostly because it has not yet aggressively pursued permits to expand production. “The biggest advantage that we have is that Mosaic went first,” CF CEO Steve Wilson said at the BMO Capital Markets Farm to Market Conference in New York. “We empathize with what they’re dealing with.

CF has begun the paperwork needed to expand its phosphate capacity by nine to 10 years’ worth of supply, Wilson said.He told Reuters he would talk with any interested party, including the Sierra Club. He acknowledged the mine expansion would be a “difficult task.” “We think we’re a great environmental citizen,” he said. “But this will take time.”Separately, Wilson said CF has no plans to build a nitrogen fertilizer plant in the United States due to concerns over carbon legislation.
“The economics in the U.S. are very favorable, but the specter of regulation of carbon looms over us,” Wilson said. “We don’t have certainty.”The production of ammonia, a key part of the nitrogen fertilizer process, produces large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The company’s facility in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, on the Mississippi River about 64 miles west of New Orleans, is operating fine, Wilson said. That is because when the facility was being built, an engineer installed the facility’s electric supply well above a dike that holds back the river, he said. Shares of CF, which is based in a Chicago suburb, rose 4.4 percent to close Tuesday at $140.19. The stock has traded between $57.57 and $153.83 in the past 52 weeks.

Read more: http://neworleans.ibtimes.com/articles/148364/20110519/cf-mosaic-s-fla-mine-woes-ceo.htm#ixzz1MrDWWLXw

More than 100 phosphate mining jobs are at stake in the dispute.
By Kevin Bouffard
The Ledger
Published: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 10:35 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at 10:35 p.m.

Read article here

HAINES CITY | Environmental groups are taking another crack at getting a federal injunction to halt a Mosaic phosphate mine in Hardee County.
The Sierra Club and two local environmental groups on Tuesday asked Judge Henry Lee Adams Jr. of federal district court in Jacksonville to issue a new injunction before July 7, when an earlier Adams injunction expires. In April, the Mosaic Co. announced plans to mine an additional 700 acres of disputed land early next month.
The tract is part of a 10,583-acre extension of the company’s South Fort Meade Mine that has been the subject of a yearlong legal battle. The lawsuit challenges a mining permit issued last year by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Mosaic announced its mining plan for the 700 acres shortly after the 11th District U.S. Appeals Court in Atlanta vacated Adams’ June 2010 injunction against the entire Hardee mine. It sent the case back to Adams and left his injunction in effect for 90 days to allow the judge time for a new ruling after further review.

The 90-day period expires July 7, but Adams has indicated he may not complete his review by then.
In its Tuesday filing, the Sierra Club claims new mining would cause irreparable and irreversible harm to the environment on the 700 acres, affecting the headwaters of the Peace River and Charlotte Harbor estuary.
Mosaic counters the mining will occur only on “uplands areas” that are not as environmentally sensitive as wetlands, as Adams ruled in his 2010 injunction decision.
“We’re perplexed. The (environmentalists) are contradicting themselves,” Mosaic spokesman Russell Schweiss said in an email Wednesday. “Upland mining does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Corps permit, and we firmly believe their argument is invalid.”
About 98 percent of the 700 acres consists of uplands, and mining operations can avoid about 16 acres of wetlands, he said.
Mosaic has been mining on 200 acres of the Hardee tract under a November agreement with the environmental groups. But that area will be mined out this month, the company said.
Mosaic had laid off about 140 South Fort Meade workers before rehiring them after the November agreement.

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at [email protected] or at 863-422-6800. Follow his Northeast Polk updates on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NEPolkbeat. ]

CONGRATULATIONS AND A 3PR COMMUNITY THANK YOU!
Dennis Mader wrote:
Congratulations, Doug!

We are very appreciative our your reporting on the radiation pollution in the mining district – although the regulatory establishment has not yet reacted to correct anything.

The link you sent is already making its way around the environmental community down here.

Thanks for the work you do,

Dennis Mader
3PR
——————————————————————
Sharing from our friend from Inside Washington Publishers
(Inside EPA’s Superfund Report)

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 3:16 PM, Doug Guarino
(clipped).. My reporting on the Florida phosphate issue won a couple of journalism awards last week. Everything at the following link is accessible to subscribers and non-subscribers alike, so feel free to pass along to colleagues or any other interested parties:

http://insideepa.com/Inside-EPA-General/Inside-EPA-Public-Content/inside-epa-wins-prize-from-society-of-professional-journalists/menu-id-565.html

—
Douglas P. Guarino
Associate Editor
Inside Washington Publishers
(Inside EPA’s Superfund Report)
1919 South Eads Street, Suite 201
Arlington, VA 22202
703-416-8518
fax:703-416-8543
mailto:[email protected]