By Staff
PCS Phosphate wants permits by December
By TED STRONG
Staff Writer
AURORA — PCS Phosphate is hiring fewer contractors as it waits to hear whether the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will grant a major permit allowing the mine to expand.
If the permit isn’t granted soon, the mine could begin a phased shutdown, but company officials aren’t sure when that would begin.
The Aurora complex, which includes the mine and chemical plants to process the phosphate, operates around the clock and employs more than 1,000 people permanently, as well as hundreds of temporary contractors.
Atwood’s comments came Wednesday during a tour of the facility by a group of current and retired business and community leaders. The tour was organized by Beaufort County Community College.
The open-pit mine has already extracted phosphate from much of the land it is legally permitted to mine. Those reserves will be exhausted totally by about 2012, according to company officials.
Because land is prepared for mining long before the ore is extracted, work already has been delayed because of the Corps’ slowness in reaching a decision, officials said.
Phosphate deposits in the area extend under environmentally sensitive land directly to the east of the existing mine. The permit PCS Phosphate is seeking would allow mining of those areas in exchange for the creation of new wetlands elsewhere. If granted, the permit would be the largest of its type in North Carolina history.
Right now, the mine is processing what its chief geologist called the “promised land” of phosphate.
The mine is also seeking to expand to less sensitive lands west and south of its current site. The expansion would take years and impact thousands of yards of stream bank. PCS Phosphate, the local arm of a Canadian minerals conglomerate, first applied for the permit in 2000, and it has faced opposition from groups including the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation and Southern Environmental Law Center.
PTRF has called the proposed expansion the “largest wetland destruction in N.C. history.”
In late May, the Corps of Engineers published an environmental study of the proposed expansion that favors a set of boundaries that would keep mining clear of streams and headwaters near South Creek, east of the existing mine.
PCS Phosphate has called the proposal cost-ineffective, while environmentalists have said the line ought to be more restrictive.
Several other plans, each either more or less restrictive, were studied.
Public comment on the expansion is being solicited until July 7.
The Corps of Engineers is expected to publish a decision on the proposed mine expansion sometime in September.
If the Corps of Engineers does grant a permit by September, PCS Phosphate might have all the permits it needs from other agencies by December, officials said.
The Corps’ environmental report is available online at www.saw.usace.army.mil/WETLANDS/index.html or at many local libraries. Comments about the expansion can be sent to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District, Regulatory Division, ATTN: File No. 2001-10096, P.O. Box 1890, Wilmington, NC 28402-1890.