Bone Valley

The Bone Valley is a region of central Florida, encompassing portions of present-day Hardee, Hillsborough, Manatee, and Polk counties, in which phosphate is mined for use in the production of agricultural fertilizer. Florida currently contains the largest known deposits of phosphate in the United States.

Process

Large walking draglines, operating twenty-four hours a day in surface mines, excavate raw pebble phosphate mixed with clay and sand (known as matrix) using huge buckets which can hold more than forty cubic yards of earth. The matrix contains a number of chemical impurities, including naturally occurring uranium at concentrations of approximately 100 ppm.

The matrix is then dropped into a pit where it is mixed with water to create a slurry, which is then pumped through miles of large steel pipes to washing plants. These plants crush, sift, and separate the phosphate from the sand, clay, and other materials, and mix in more water to create a granular rock termed wetrock. The wetrock, which is typically of little use in raw form, is then moved largely by rail to fertilizer plants where it is processed. The final products include, but are not limited to, diammonium phosphate (DAP), monoammonium phosphate (MAP) and triple superphosphate (TSP).

Waste byproducts are stored in large phosphogypsum stacks and settling ponds, whose sizes are often measured in hundreds of acres, and can be up to 200 feet (60 m) tall in the case of large stacks. Phosphate processing produces significant amounts of fluorine gas, which must be treated by filtering through special scrubbers involving the use of silica.

Most of the final product (known within the industry as 'dryrock') are then transported by rail to facilities along Tampa Bay, where they are transloaded onto ships destined for countries such as China.

Phosphate product intended for domestic use is assembled into long trains of covered hopper cars for northbound movement.

History

When the narrow gauge Florida Southern Railway reached Arcadia in 1886, it was only a sleepy little town and the builders paused only briefly before pushing the railroad south to Punta Gorda. Unknown to the railroad and the general public at this time, a great discovery had been made in 1881 by Captain Francis LeBaron of the US Army Corps of Engineers, who was examining the lower Peace River area for the survey of a canal that would connect the headwaters of the Saint Johns River to Charlotte Harbor. Here he found and shipped to the Smithsonian nine barrels of prehistoric fossils from the sand bars prevalent on the lower Peace River. He also noticed that there was a phosphatase quality to the fossils and the deposit they were found in was very valuable. The Smithsonian wanted him to return and lead an expedition for prospecting more fossils, but Captain LeBaron was unable to return due to his important duties at Fernandina and were put in charge of the harbor improvements there.

Finally in December 1886, LeBaron was able to return to the Peace River where he dug some test pits and sent the samples to a laboratory for analysis. His suspicions were confirmed as the tests showed high quality bone phosphate of lime. LeBaron tried in vain to round up investors in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but none were willing to invest in the project. Frustrated he left the United States for the ill-fated Nicaraguan Canal Project.

Meanwhile, the test results became known to Colonel G.W. Scott who owned the G.W. Scott Manufacturing Co. of Atlanta, Georgia and he quickly sent a representative down to Arcadia who made several large purchases along the Peace River. Colonel T.S. Moorhead of Pennsylvania had also learned about the deposits from Captain LeBaron, but not the secret of their location, traveled to Arcadia where he luckily stumbled onto the famous sand bars. Mr. Moorhead formed the Arcadia Phosphate Company, with the Scott Mfg. Co. quickly agreeing to purchase the entire output. The very first shipment of Florida phosphate was made in May 1888 when the first ten car loads were dispatched to Scott's Fertilizer Works in Atlanta, Georgia. Soon after, G.W. Scott formed the Desoto Phosphate Co. at Zolfo where the Florida Southern Railway crossed the Peace River. However the biggest player was the Peace River Phosphate Co. (formed in January 1887) which was located in Arcadia by M.M. Knudson of New York and they quickly built a narrow gauge railroad from the works on the river to the interchange with the Florida Southern. It is this company and its railroad that is the first direct ancestor of the future Charlotte Harbor & Northern. The Peace River Phosphate Co. began mining in the Winter of 1889, and most of the ore was shipped to Punta Gorda via. the Florida Southern, where it was loaded onto boats for export to Europe.

Early mining methods was the pick and shovel method where the above water sand bars were mined by hand and loaded onto barges which were herded by shallow water tug boats to the drying works located nearby. Soon the use of suction dredges were put into use and the mining spread all along the lower Peace River.

Moorhead soon sold his Arcadia Phosphate Co. to Hammond & Hull of Savannah, Georgia a large fertilizer operation in that city. Moorhead then left Florida and returned to Pennsylvania, where he developed a phosphate mine in Juanita County, PA and formed the narrow gauge Tuscaroa Valley Rail Road. Hammond & Hull also owned the Charlotte Harbor Phosphate Co. which had their works at Hull, connecting with the Florida Southern by a short branch line. Wanting to connect the two plants, Hammond & Hull built a narrow gauge railroad between Arcadia and Hull around 1890. The railroad served various load outs along the river where the barges full of pebble would be unloaded and raised to the railroad and loaded onto ore cars for the journey to the drying plants at Arcadia and Hull. Hammond dropped out around 1890 and the new firm was known as Comer & Hull. The Peace River Phosphate Co. in the mean time had built a narrow gauge railroad north of Arcadia to their load-outs along the Peace River. Like the Comer & Hull operations, the ore was hauled to the drying plant at Arcadia where it was loaded into the narrow gauge boxcars of the Florida Southern. When the railroad converted it's Charlotte Harbor Division to standard gauge in 1892, both the Peace River Phosphate Co. and Comer & Hull operations converted their respective railroads. Joseph Hull of Comer & Hull purchased a half interest in the Peace River Phosphate Co. about this time.

In December 1894, Joseph Hull consolidated the Arcadia Phosphate Co., Charlotte Harbor Phosphate Co., Desota Phosphate & Mining Co. & Peace River Phosphate Co. into the Peace River Phosphate Mining Co.

Peter Bradley of New York was one of the fertilizer capitalists (Bradley Fertilzer Co.) that Captain LeBaron had first approached about the sand bars, but was initially rebuffed. In May 1899, he was involved in the merger of 22 fertilzer companies into the American Agricultral Chemical Co. becoming vice president and a director of the new corporation.

AACC began buying the stock of the Peace River Phosphate Mining Co. beginning in June 1899 and finishing up in January 1902.

The Peace River Phosphate Mining Company Railroad consisted of a mainline running south from Arcadia to Liverpool. A few short branches connected the railroad to the Florida Southern (later the Plant System in 1896 and the ACL after 1902) at Arcadia, Hull and Liverpool. At Hull was the washing plant where sand was removed. Liverpool housed the drying plant and barge loading facilities. A branch running north for about three miles (5 km) upstream from Arcadia served the many load outs along the river.

In the early years, phosphate from the Peace River area was barged to Punta Gorda, or shipped by rail to Port Tampa. Other important ports were later established at Seddon Island, Boca Grande, and Rockport.

Today, there are two companies which mine phosphate rock in the region, Mosaic Inc. (formed from the merger of IMC-Global and Cargill Crop Nutrition) as well as CF Industries. At present, Mosaic is seeking to mine properties further south, in Hardee and Manatee Counties.

With renewed interest in corn-based Ethanol fuel, the demand for fertilizer is expected to increase.

Rail Service

Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Bone Valley region received service from two major railroads, the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line. More than a few plants and mines saw the services of "both" railroad companies, such as the Ridgewood fertilizer plant located at Bartow, and the massive Nichols complex near Mulberry. It was not until the 1967 Seaboard Coast Line merger that the bitter rivalry was put to rest. SCL itself was later absorbed into CSX, who have since pursued an aggressive strategy of abandoning redundant trackage.

Abandoned routes within the Bone Valley area include:

* Bowling Green to Arcadia (ACL)

* Arcadia to Boca Grande (SAL)

* Durant to Willow (SAL)

Risks of mining

Phosphate is a growing export to China, where it is used in fertilizer, but the consequences of mining it are borne in the Peace River watershed. Phosphate mining companies bore and scrape huge pits up to 60 feet (20 m) deep over thousands of contiguous acres. More than 180,000 acres (730 km²) have already been mined in the Peace River watershed, and mining corporations are now seeking permits for another 100,000 acres (400 km²) - an expansion of more than fifty percent.

One byproduct of the extraction process is clay, which is stored in settling ponds which eventually comprise more than forty percent of a mine site. Some of these ponds can measure thousands of acres. Rain is trapped in these massive clay-laden ponds, rather than soaking into the soil to replenish underlying aquifers. This in turn, reduces flow in the Peace River. Since the 1960s, the average annual flow of the middle Peace River has declined from 1,350 to convert|800|cuft|m3 per second (38 to 23 m³/s). Most of this flow reduction is due to phosphate mining. Each holding pond has been perceived as a risk that threatens water quality, public health, wildlife, and the regional economy. Dams restraining the ponds have overflowed or burst, sending a slurry of clay, containing uranium and radium into the river, and coating the riverbed for many miles with a toxic clay slime that suffocates flora and fauna. One such incident in 1971 killed over three million fish when two million gallons of phosphate waste swept into the river, causing an estimated five foot tall tide of slime that spread into adjacent pastures and wetlands.

Most recently, in 2004, during Hurricane Frances, a phosphogypsum stack was overwhelmed by hurricane rains and the levees were breached, sending over 18,000 gallons of acidic, radioactive phosphogypsum into Tampa Bay. Cargill Crop Nutrition, who owned the stack, added lime into the affected areas in an attempt to neutralize the highly-acidic runoff.

On occasion, clay slime spills have prevented the "Peace River Manasota Water Supply Authority" from using river flows for drinking water, forcing municipalities to seek water supplies elsewhere, or rely on stored supplies. On several occasions, the effects of heavy rainfall have created sinkholes beneath the settling ponds.

External links

* [http://www.cfindustries.com/default.htm CF Industries, Inc.]
* [http://www.Mosaicco.com Mosaic Co.]
* [http://www.fluoridealert.org/phosphate/overview.htm The Phosphate Fertilizer Industry: An Environmental Overview]