Mine Field

Florida Trend, May 2008 by Barnett, Cynthia

In rural west-central Florida, County Line Road defines the border between Polk and Hardee counties. On the south side, the Hardee landscape is typical Florida heartland: Drought-browned pasture stretches mile after mile, dotted by grazing cows, lonely palms and scrub-oak trees. To the north, the view into Polk County is a jarring contrast: Mile after mile of strip-mined earth in shades of gray, with not a tree or other living thing on the horizon.

That moonscape to the north is the South Fort Meade Mine, a phosphate operation most owned by the most powerful company that most Floridians have never heard of: Minnesota-based Mosaic Co. The $6 billion fertilizer company is one of only three phosphate firms left in Florida from the 100 that operated during the industry's heyday in the early 20th century. Formed in 2004 by a merger of Cargill Crop Nutrition and IMC Global (Cargill remains 65% owner), it controls more than 300,000 acres of the state.

Mosaic is the biggest phosphate supplier in the world, and the soaring demand for fertilizer has sent its sales and profits skyrocketing. Mosaic's share price jumped 345% last year, making it the fastest-rising U.S. large-cap stock.

Florida's sandy soils are key to that success. The company gets 100% of its phosphate from the state - nearly 10 million tons a year. That amounts to more than half the phosphate sold in the U.S. and 16% of the global market, more than double any competitor's share.

But the industry is entering its endgame in Florida. After more than a century of mining, Florida's phosphate deposits are running out. Almost all the remaining mineable reserves in the state are found to the south and west of County Line Road. As the industry's biggest power player, Mosaic is leading a drive to push mining farther into southwest Florida. But, urbanization and environmental concerns mean mining isn't as easy as it was when phosphate was a top-three Florida industry that expanded pretty much as it pleased.

For the industry, the question is whether the end of mining comes sooner or later. "Florida is out of business in terms of phosphate by 2040," says a Michael Lloyd Jr., research director of the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research. "Mosaic is the final big player. If Mosaic can't get permission to mine southwest Florida, it will be over sooner."

For residents of southwest Florida, there's a second big question: If mining proceeds, will Mosaic do it better than predecessors who scarred Florida's landscape?

Mother lode

All animal and plant cells require phosphate, which forms the backbone of DNA and stores energy from food and sunlight. Adding phosphate to soil hikes crop and pasture yields in fields sapped by farming. But getting enough to make fertilizer in bulk requires removing it from under-ground.

Phosphate deposits are concentrated in the United States, China, Morocco and Russia. Historically, Florida has been the industry's mother lode. A matrix of sand, clay and phosphate rock lies just 15 to 50 feet below ground, most in the so-called Bone Valley region of central Florida. Florida's railroads and ports helped make the state a key exporter.

Starting in the late 1880s, miners began working southward through the heart of Bone Valley. As they dug around Lakeland, Mulberry, Bartow and Plant City, mining became the third-largest industry in the state, behind only tourism and agriculture, for much of the 20th century.

Over time, increasingly efficient production began to deplete central Florida's reserves. In 1900, it took miners a year to excavate a I5-acre site with picks and shovels. A century later, enormous draglines, working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, can dig up 15 acres a month.

Mosaic and CF Industry Holdings, a Chicago-based fertilizer company, operate the remaining pits in central Florida and want to continue the industry's traditional progression southward. If Mosaic lands state and federal permits currently under review, the company will expand the South Fort Meade Mine by 10,880 acres, across County Line Road. It also will begin mining a tract called Altman in Manatee County and another in Hardee called Ona.

The expansion, however, puts mining into conflict with other economic forces. Phosphate's economic clout has diminished as its share of the state's GDP has given way to 21st century powerhouses like real estate, construction and service industries. Meanwhile, the growing, urbanized population of southwest Florida asks whether the economic contributions of phosphate are worth its environmental impacts. Confronted with the specter of strip mining, newer residents tend to view it as unsustainable in a fragile place like Florida.

Many company executives are taken aback by what they see as underappreciation of the industry's value. The South Fort Meade Mine's manager, Howie Stoughton, is a Canadian whose hometown in the heart of potash-mining country has more drivable miles below ground than above. Stoughton says he was astonished to find that even industrial leaders from the Mid-west who've retired to Florida "say yes they understand the need for this industry - just not here."