Phosphate mining disaster in Florida
The Bone Valley region, also known as the Peace River Basin, is located in southwestern central Florida, about 30 miles east of the Tampa Bay Area. The Peace River watershed includes portions of present-day Hardee, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Polk counties where phosphate is mined for use in agricultural fertilizer production. Florida currently contains the largest known deposits of phosphates in the United States.
Take a look from space
Take a closer look at what you can see on Google Maps. see hyperlink:
“https://www.google.com/maps?ll=27.840787,-81.99678&z=10&t=m&hl=en-US&gl=US&mapclient=embed” You will see a large area of land, about thirty miles east of the Tampa Bay Area, on the Florida peninsula. This area is known as the Peace River Basin. Here you will see numerous very large man-made square or rectangular mine shafts filled with clear fresh water from crushed aquifer systems.
These square wells filled with fresh water from the aquifer stand apart from Florida’s beautiful natural blue lakes and ponds. These giant square pits are man-made craters created by phosphate draglines digging for phosphates one hundred feet into Florida’s natural water supply. The water supply is in the form of underground water tables or “aquifer systems”. Google Maps clearly shows that phosphate draglines have stripped and marked the land of Southwest Central Florida over a full square mile of a phosphate mine, alone.
The term “overburden” from phosphate industries is more commonly known to the layman as lakes, ponds, trees, grasslands, grasslands, rivers, natural springs, aquifer systems, watersheds, etc. The draglines are so large and numerous that they remove thousands of acres of “waste rock” in just one month of work. These massive draglines mine a hundred feet down, penetrate and then completely crush and eliminate Florida’s natural aquifer systems. Untold volumes of water no longer contained in the aquifer system are free to fill newly created phosphate pits on the land of southwest central Florida.
As of this writing, the phosphate mining industry continues to purchase thousands of square miles of critical wetlands, aquifer systems, and watersheds for the purpose of strip mining the contents. This all happens with the permission of the Florida state and counties when they issue permits for open pit phosphate mining. Unfortunately, these permits give the open pit phosphate mining industry access to Florida’s rich geography, including Florida’s unique aquifer systems. Florida’s aquifer systems took nature millennia (thousands of years) to perfect and many are now totally extinct. Is Florida’s phosphate more valuable than Florida’s watersheds and aquifers? Florida politics and the phosphate strip mining industry say it’s every day. The (2) Florida Department of Environmental Protection Services says: “…in 2000, $1.13 billion of phosphate-based fertilizers were exported from Florida, making it another of Florida’s top export commodities. Florida”.
Phosphate draglines in action
The (1) United States Geological Society (USGS) believes that draglines can be hundreds of feet tall and can also weigh hundreds of tons. The huge bucket of a dragline holds 65 cubic yards of waste rock, which will completely fill 10 standard dump trucks. The dragline removes up to 100 feet of soil known to be overburdened by the phosphate industry. Unfortunately, the first 60 feet of dirt contain the true treasures of Florida.
The overburden is simply discarded, resulting in “phosphate waste heaps.” These spoil piles are arranged next to what are called the “phosphate mine shafts.” Phosphate mine shafts resemble a moonscape as opposed to the appearance of Florida’s natural beauty. The phosphate strip mining industry operates 365 days a year throughout Southwest Central Florida. This relentless removal of overburden by the Florida phosphate industry causes irreparable damage to Florida’s aquifer systems.
Basins and Aquifers
The Peace River watershed covers 2,300 square miles in the southwest area of Central Florida. It contains most of Florida’s phosphate mining industry, including Bone Valley. As mentioned above, open pit phosphate mining companies use draglines to remove surface soils (known as overburden) down to 100 feet, removing thousands of contiguous acres of Florida’s aquifer systems.
Remedial is required by Florida state law (60 feet deep). Wetlands recover acre by acre, type by type. The phosphate industry reports that more than 180,000 acres (728 km2) have been reclaimed in the Peace River Basin. The phosphate industry strongly promotes its reclamation projects such as wetland and watershed reclamation. Unfortunately, we are only being given half truths.
All the truth
Aquifer systems cannot simply be replaced during the recovery phase. This fact is not subjective because man cannot replace what nature took thousands of years to create. The aquifers are gone, along with one of Florida’s most amazing natural resources, abundant clean, fresh water. The phosphate industry claims it has reclaimed more than 180,000 acres. This is only half true because it does not include the same number of acres of Florida aquifers that are gone forever. Ironically, phosphate is a declining export.
Defined dragline work
WIKIPEDIA states: “Large traveling draglines, operating around the clock in strip mines, excavate raw phosphate pebbles mixed with clay and sand (known as matrix) in Bone Valley…”.
Are Florida’s aquifer systems linked to sinkholes?
The (1) USGS believes that sinkhole-prone areas are located below ground in southwestern central Florida. Sinkholes can be induced by large amounts of water consumption, including open pit phosphate mining. These sinkholes are formed based on rock types, aquifer formations, destruction of aquifer formations, and lack of groundwater. This is based on the geological hydraulic pressure created by aquifer systems. Therefore, the lack of surface water pressure due to the destruction of the aquifer formation causes the overburden to become unstable and collapse, in some cases. Unfortunately, loss of life and property can occur in a surface collapse. Once again, the evidence points to the phosphate industry in the form of sinkholes caused by the destruction of the aquifer formation.
Aquifers are nature’s hydraulic lifts. Filled with water, aquifers cannot be compressed, so the surface above aquifer systems is stable, meaning there are no sinkholes. However, when the aquifers are crushed and removed, the water in these aquifers is now free of containment. This large volume of water fills extraordinarily large and deep wells with clear, clean, fresh water. Most interestingly, nature is now working against us in the form of sinkholes that develop on top of and geologically close to crushed aquifer systems.
Southwest Central Florida’s watersheds and aquifers are becoming extinct due to the destruction of the aquifer system formation through open pit phosphate mining operations. Florida’s treasures, known to the Florida phosphate mining industry as phosphate overburden, are being destroyed for the valuable phosphate.
Florida’s aquifer systems are being completely removed along with overburden using huge phosphate draglines. Valuable phosphate is removed leaving (visible from Google Maps) huge blue holes. These beautiful big blue holes are tens of thousands of acres of open pit phosphate mine shafts where the local natural aquifers have been completely destroyed.
Not surprisingly, the Tampa Bay area of Florida is a sinkhole disaster. This area is directly adjacent to the largest open pit phosphate mines in the continental United States, where the entire land area of southwest central Florida is supported by the largest aquifer system in the state. The system is known as the Flordan water system. see hyperlink:
(1) The United States Geological Survey (USGS).
(2) The Florida Department of Environmental Protection Services.