{"id":3165,"date":"2019-10-01T12:57:57","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2019-10-01T12:58:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T16:58:18","slug":"citizens-from-5-counties-turn-out-to-protest-mosaic-permit-renewal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/10\/01\/citizens-from-5-counties-turn-out-to-protest-mosaic-permit-renewal\/","title":{"rendered":"Citizens from 5 counties turn out to protest Mosaic permit renewal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Citizens from five different Florida counties were out in number at Monday night\u2019s so-called \u201cOpen House\u201d meeting held at the Mulberry Civic Center, an effort put on by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Agency and Mosaic to help put at ease the fears of those who object to Mosaic\u2019s most recent NPDES permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was advertised as a hearing but was turned into a big \u201cdog\nand pony show\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mosaic permit, which is renewed every few years,\nestablishes guidelines for discharges to surface waters under the National\nPollutant Discharge Elimination System program, a federal program established\nby the Clean Water Act to control discharges from sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Approximately 2.689 million gallons a day of industrial\nwaste water will be released into the Peace River from the Bartow South\nChemical Plant, according to the permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis looks like a science fair,\u201d said Hunter Sullivan, who\nadded that he felt like everyone should have been invited for a \u201cformal\u201d public\nhearing, with chairs in a room before a board of commissioners so everyone\ncould present their point of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others felt the same, noting \u201cwhere are we going to sit,\u201d\nand asked organizers why a public hearing was not being held for the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, what citizens found were several stations set up\nwith easels and boards, a few tables with displays and each station manned by\nMosaic\u2019s team or the FDEP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea, organizers said, was that everyone could peruse\nthe room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FDEP Press Secretary Dee Ann Miller said there seemed to be\na misunderstanding among many who attended, thinking the meeting was a \u201cpublic\nhearing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the meeting was put on as an \u201copen house,\u201d and a\nchance for those who came to get their questions answered and voices heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointing to a nearby comment table, she noted that everyone\ncould sign their comments and they would be read and considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three Polk County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputies were on duty for\nthe event, and the doors to the Civic Center were locked until precisely 4 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NO protest signs were allowed inside the building, Period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some among those waiting outside the center knocked loudly\non the glass windows, one gentleman protesting loudly that it was wrong for the\norganizers to lock the doors before the open house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norma Killebrew, the local rancher who spearheaded a\npetition objecting issuance of the permit that has grown to some 440 signers\nthus far, was outside collecting more signatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur residents \u2014 most of our residents are impacted by\nmining, phosphate mining,\u201d she said. Many from Polk, Punta Gorda and Charlotte\nCounty were in attendance, she noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Killebrew said about four or five years ago, her ranch lost\nall its water. \u201cWe had to sell half our cattle. Mining tells you that it is a\ntemporary thing, but you know I don\u2019t live that long,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her husband died of leukemia, and she said she felt the\nwater had something to do with it. \u201cA bunch of us are the walking wounded. We\nhave had families impacted by the effluent that they are letting out of these\nNDPES outlets,\u201d she said. Both of her wells tested high for radiation, she\nsaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sea captain Paul DeGaeta said he came to the meeting because\nhe lives on Peace River and remembers the phosphate spills in the 60s and 70s,\nnoting \u201cIt was a 90% fish kill on the 106-mile Peace River.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to literature distributed at the gathering by the\nFDEP, the FDEP will review all public comment before it takes its final action\nto either approve or deny the permit. If the permit is approved to be renewed,\nthen Mosaic will be required to issue a public notice, and the public would\nhave a 14-day period of time where the public may challenge the Department\u2019s\nproposed action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the usual NDPES program permit guidelines of\neffluent limits, the construction, operation, inspection, maintenance, closure\nand long term care of phosphogypsum stacks systems, groundwater quality\nprotections and monitoring, among other guidelines, the drafter permit is more\nstrict than the existing one, according to the FDEP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phosphogypsum is a by-product generated during the\nmanufacture of phosphoric acid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDEP says that under the National Emission Standards for\nHazard Air Pollutants, under 40 CFE Part 61 Subpart R, phosphogypsum must be\nplaced in stacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two additional internal surface water monitoring sites are\nincluded, Mosaic is required to establish a new background instream monitoring\nstation, as well as evaluations for downstream instream biological criteria,\nnew total ammonia nitrogen criteria, two new groundwater quality monitoring\nwells, and a revised Fate and Transport Analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FDEP says Mosaic is currently in \u201ccompliance\u201d with two\nconsent orders associated with the site, and have implemented \u201cspecific\nmonitoring requirements\u201d to track the progress of the corrective actions\nindicated in the permit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Callie Neslund, director of public and government affairs at\nMosaic, said \u201cThe standards for how gypsum stacks and clay settling areas have\nchanged, and they are now built to strict engineering standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were clay settling area breaches, but that is not\npart of this permit, and that is not part of these operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is required by all industrial facilities, that is landfills, that is municipal waste, water treatment facilities, any industrial. It is a federal permit that is required by the State of Florida that sets the standards by which any water is leaving your site has to meet. So Mosaic has process water at our facilities that we recycle and reutilize in our operations. But also we have stormwater that we receive onsite and have to discharge. And all of that is monitored, both groundwater and surface water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neslund said Mosaic has had operations consistently at this\nsite, and the permit is renewed every five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mosaic is not asking for any additional capacity or changes,\nshe said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citizens from five different Florida counties were out in number at Monday night\u2019s so-called \u201cOpen House\u201d meeting held at the Mulberry Civic Center, an effort put on by the Florida… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}