Phosphate Mine Gets Green Light at Expense of Wetlands

Brown Pelican. Photo: National Park Service

In January, the state of North Carolina amended a water quality certification to enable the expansion of a phosphate mine in Beaufort County. The Army Corps of Engineers must now approve the final permit to allow PCS Phosphate Inc. to increase its operations that over the next 35 years will impact more than seven miles of streams and nearly 4,000 acres of wetlands around South Creek, Porter Creek, Durham Creek, and the Pamlico River. The area is classified by the state as being “of exceptional state or national ecological significance,” and is home to a diverse waterbird bird community, including wintering Tundra Swans, breeding and wintering shorebirds, and Brown Pelicans.

The water quality certification requires that the nearby, privately-owned Bonnerton Road Non-Riverine Wet Hardwood Forest, which contains stands of oak, red maple, and loblolly, be protected; however, the company won an exemption to cut a 1,145-foot-wide swath through the narrowest part of the forest to enable it to transport heavy machinery.

Under the certification, the company must restore or create two acres of wetland for each one it destroys, but the quality of those “restored” wetlands is unlikely to match the existing, natural wetlands. PCS must also restore the original wetlands after mining operations have ceased. However, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), in the 43 years that the company has been operating, it has only reclaimed 14% of the land it has mined. SELC categorizes the mining expansion as the single largest destruction of wetlands in North Carolina history.

In addition to its impact on birds and wetland aquatic communities, the mining expansion is likely to have a negative effect on one of the most productive fisheries in North America for blue crab, penaid shrimp, Atlantic croaker, and bay anchovy.