Click on a few next page arrows and try to imagine the extent of the problems that mining has created in that region.
Why is no performance bond required to assure that monies are available to clean up the mining company messes after they declare bankrupty and skip town, similar to what the Interior Department requires for acquiring oil and gas drilling and production leases on federal lands?
Its pretty much a world wide issue. UK we have loads of mining slag heaps which every so often decide to rearrange themselves. I don't have a clue how the finances of dealing with it are dealt with.
Although they are mostly ex British Coal so the government owned them for the majority of there lifespan which make it easier.
After bankruptcy I didn't think shareholders could be chased for outstanding debts. All they can do is liquidate current assets and then they are gone. Part and parcel of having a limited liability company.
This appears to be similar to the Flint Michigan scenario. Another disaster caused by a Governor.
Former Governor Soctt was in charge when the DEP budget was slashed in 2007.
"From the moment the health-care multimillionaire swept into office on 2010′s Tea Party anti-tax, anti-regulation wave, he began slashing the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD), cutting budgets, skilled staff and inspections.
Annual DEP funding:
Here is the bottom line total each year:
2004-05: $2.1 billion
2005-06: $2 billion
2006-07: $2.9 billion
2007-08: $2.4 billion
2008-09: $2 billion
2009-10: $1.3 billion
The SFWMD, which had a $1.4 billion budget in 2007, is now an $814 million agency. Scott’s administration cut $700 million out of all the state’s water management districts after his first year and crippled their ability to levy taxes. His justification — giving average property owners tax relief — is a sick joke; the state’s 15 biggest industries, like Florida Power & Light and the Walt Disney Co., got to pocket a combined $1.2 million annually, but homeowners save less than $3 per $100,000."
Responsibility for the dangerous waste at Piney Point has been passed around over the decades from a private company, to the state and then back to another private company. All the while, polluted water and phosphogypsum has lingered as a risk to the bay.
To compound the problem at Piney Point, the Florida DEP permitted the stacks (sludge lagoons) to accept dredged materials from the Manatee County’s Berth 12 dredging project at the Port of Manatee. What a stupid idea that was. That is why they are saying it is saltwater.
"In response to Bellamy, Manatee County Parks & Natural Resources Director Charlie Hunsicker said the “elephant in the room” is the construction of the lined containment system, which has now leaked twice since 2011."
"That high density polyethylene liner was installed between 2003 and September 2005 by contractors DEP hired after it took over the Piney Point facility in an effort to close the site after the Mulberry Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2001, according to DEP records. At the time, the overfull containment system was also in danger of failing, forcing a more costly and elaborate effort to get rid of the tainted water."
"HRK Holdings purchased the Piney Point property in August 2006. DEP had just completed its effort to install the liner system and treat and remove hundreds of millions of gallons of wastewater while operating at the site, leaving about 35 million gallons of wastewater in the surface of the ponds, according to DEP records."
"The company agreed to accept dredging materials from Manatee County’s Berth 12 dredging project at the Port of Manatee, and to store excess capacity at the wastewater pond on the property’s southeast corner. DEP was the permitting agency on the project."
"The Berth 12 project took place between April 2011 and October 2011, but was interrupted by the first leak in the phosphogypsum stack since the polyethylene liner was installed. The water was leaking from the pond that received the dredging material, which is the same pond that is leaking at Piney Point today."
“When the port was dredged, we delivered the dredge material and a slurry of water to a containment pond at the top of the stack that had capacity at that time,” Hunsicker said. “It was a good place to put the dredge material as opposed to offshore dumping or finding a spot in Tampa Bay to put it. It was a good solution. So the material went to the top of the stack in a mud-water slurry.”
If the pond doesn't leak, its a landlord's dream. If it leaks, maybe they have insurance coverage. If not, then they play their LLC get out of jail free card, bankruptcy and a midnight train to Georgia on the Orange Blossom Express. Seems to have worked before. In fact, is it not the oldest play in the book?
In Canada, when property changes hands, the seller has to declare if there are any 'buried things' (Jimmy Hoffa,excepted) and the new owner is responsible to remediate... this may be in the purchase agreement, I don't know. Else it can be part of the sale agreement that the original owner look after remediation. I've been involved with several projects where this has happened. It becomes a caveat to the property title. The original seller may be responsible (I think he's in Chapter 11) or the new guy may be responsible... If the old guy has not met the terms of the sales contract, the sale may be voided... and the old guy may now be faced with ownership, having to pay back the money, and being sued by the new purchasor, and a state lien filed against the property... the fly in the ointment is the the Florida State government is a little flakey (by world standards, and I'm including backward African countries). The winners... as usual are the lawyers...
Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?
Thats the magic of LLCs. LLC's should be limited to owning no more than whatever their insurance policy covers. If they want more, they can post a bond to cover potential future liabilities.
Now it is just a question - can the water be drained / pumped out faster than the impoundment failure progresses or not.
One of the problems complicating the management of waste from Phosphate mining is that phosphate rock contains naturally-occurring uranium, thorium and radium, most of which remains in the waste phosphogypsum. EPA, Radioactive Material From Fertilizer Production
They do
Financial Assurance for Decommissioning
NRC requires nuclear power plant licensees to report to the agency the status of their decommissioning funds at least once every 2 years, annually within 5 years of the planned shutdown, and annually once the plant ceases operation.
In the US, there are large liability loopholes regularly dished out by the congress and the state legislatures. It includes mining, superfund sites, nuclear plants, cell phone mfrs, cell tower operators, vaccine mfrs, and on and on. It is not clear what rationale the representatives use when they pass these get out of jail free rules, and it is the normal response for the public to grimace at the coincidence of large political donations from the related mfrs at the time of the passage of these laws.At some point a concious , breathing adult will realize it is just a gov't for sale, and user beware.
"...when logic, and proportion, have fallen, sloppy dead..." Grace Slick
Performance bonds, or something equivalent, should be a requirement on any large construction project. Not just nuclear and mining, but any project that has a substantial impact beyond the property line, including solar and wind projects. Seems we all agree on that (hopefully).
However, trying to make a correlation between a shrinking (or expanding) state dept budget and near-term performance of one site is not so convincing. There are 100 variables that brought us to this point, not just a handful of sinister libertarian-leaning politicians.
In order to make your claim about the causation of budgets vs environmental outcome, it appears you have anchored the "correct" state dept budget number to the previous years budget. Who is to say that the previous budget wasn't 4x as large as it should have been. Few people - and probably not us - have the insight to accurately define what the budget of such-and-such dept should be to fulfill their mandate. The left always wants a bigger state budget, the right always wants to shrink it. Few ask what it should be without anchors. [Or why half of the state staff is home doing kitchen remodels while drawing a full salary.]
I have worked for both the private and public sectors. I can assure you that some state dept budgets are indeed 3x as large as needed, and the state would get the necessary business for the poeple done if they cut 70% of their staff. And regulation is for sure the necessary job of the state.
Anyway, we're all engineers, so is they any engineering in this story we can hash out? Say, slope stability with rapid drawdown, or changes in permeability over time, or rapid mitigation techniques, or something like that.
