PCS Phosphate White Springs was granted a five-year renewal of a special permit for their mining operations after a second public hearing Tuesday, Aug. 20, during a meeting of the Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners.

The second public hearing was a continuation of the first public hearing held in May when new data was presented, at which time PCS asked for an extension.

The county’s special counsel on phosphate mining Scott Shirley from Ard, Shirley & Rudolph P.A. was present at the meeting, as well as Greg Hitz from Lampl Herbert Consultants, Inc.

“We did have some water quality issues come up late in the process in the run up to the planning commission hearing last spring,” said Shirley. “As a consequence of that, the phosphate mine had several experts review the data that had been collected by the owner of Bienville Plantation. We have met with the individuals who analyzed the collected data, and Mr. Hitz and I are satisfied with the opinions they offered that there is no public health threat associated with the water in the lake.”

Hitz gave the commissioners a hard copy of a PowerPoint presentation he showed at the meeting and said, “Basically, our five-year review focused on mining related issues and some other site isues.”

Hitz said one of the biggest changes/revisions after the review of the 100,000 acre mining operation was completed, had to do with the four discharge areas and private landowner outparcels. After reviewing documents, variances, permits and pending applications, as well as doing interviews with county staff, PCS staff and others regarding regulations, they developed a table of data.

“PCS was found to be in compliance with all the permits,” said Hitz. “Over the course of the five years there were some non-compliant events and those resulted in consent orders from either DEP or EPA. At the end of the analysis, PCS was implementing the conditions of the consent order, so they may be ongoing and PCS is consistent with the consent order.”

The consent orders, Hitz said, had to do with the gypsum stacks at the complexes, the sedimentation at Lake Purvis and the processed water that was released into the sinkhole at Swift Creek.

“Again, PCS is implementing the terms of those conditions,” Hitz said.

Hitz said there was also a sinkhole at the Suwannee River site, but there was not a release of water, so no consent order was issued on that.

“Ultimately, PCS plugged that sinkhole,” said Hitz. “That stack will return to service at the Suwannee River. The same thing with the Swift Creek gyp stack; there was a release there that resulted in a consent order, however, the sinkhole was plugged, grouted, and was confirmed that the plug was sealed up, and it was returned to service.”

The third issue, Hitz said, was water quality at Bienville Plantation.

“Those issues have been working out,” he said.

In summary, Shirley said, “The only comment I wanted to make is with regard to water quality, in particular, your mining standards do have a provision regarding a prohibition against discharging pollutants in the surface waters, but that doesn’t apply within the confines of any permitted water management treatment and disposal system that is operating in compliance of the permits.”

In other words, Shirley explained, if it’s within the mining system, and operating in compliance with approved permits, including external discharge points and internal transfer points, then the site is in compliance.

It was noted that the planning and zoning board had already approved the five-year permit renewal after the first public hearing.

Once the public hearing was closed, the board voted unanimously to approve renewal of special permit 0301 in the land development regulations for PCS that includes a water quality proviso that is to be dealt with as part of the technical working group process. A summary of efforts to resolve landowner’s complaints will be included in the annual report for calendar year 2013, Shirley added.