A bigger dig?

Phosphate has been mined along the Pamlico River for years, but expansion would mean a new threat to wetlands and water quality

In the business of surface resource extraction, or strip mining to use the everyday term, there's no getting around the fact that natural habitats will be severely messed up. But the materials obtained through such mining can be of great economic significance. How to balance the costs and benefits, if indeed they can be balanced, is the challenge facing those officials who decide whether to let mining proceed and under what conditions.

So what sort of balance is possible when the mining could basically trash thousands of acres of wetlands?

That's the dilemma in the case of PCS Phosphate, the company that wants to enlarge its mining operations on tracts that drain into the Pamlico River near Aurora in Beaufort County. The Army Corps of Engineers, now considering the PCS proposal, should take a cautious, conservative line that gives top priority to the public interest in a healthy environment.

Phosphate has been mined along the south bank of the Pamlico for close to 30 years. The annual haul is in the range of 5 million tons.

The mineral is used mainly for fertilizer, and it's an economic mainstay for that part of Eastern North Carolina. PCS also has put in place elaborate measures to restore mined-over land to something approaching its natural state.

That said, phosphate mining atop creeks and wetlands cannot avoid destruction of environmentally valuable habitat. Wetlands, as filters, help uphold water quality and also serve as nursery grounds for many aquatic species.

The Pamlico River, flowing into Pamlico Sound, is one of North Carolina's most critical assets when it comes to maintaining a viable seafood industry. Losing more of the river's adjacent wetlands would surely be detrimental to this ecosystem's health.

Projects that would result in loss of wetlands require approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the PCS case, it turned down a request to extend current mining activities to the east, along South Creek and its tributaries.

But in the search for acceptable alternatives, the Corps still is considering options that would cover some 15,100 acres, including 4,135 acres of wetlands and waterways. The mining would be a long-term proposition; impacts would not be felt immediately or all at once.

Those impacts nevertheless would be on a scale that seems hard to square with the spirit of the Clean Water Act, which has wetlands protection as a key strategy.

A spokesperson for the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation notes that if approved by the Corps, the PCS proposal would result in "the largest permitted destruction of wetlands in the state's history." While that fact by itself perhaps should not be a deal-breaker, it signals that an incremental approach to the expansion would be wise.

Indeed, the foundation suggests that additional mining first proceed on an 8,686-acre tract that contains only 510 acres of wetlands. Even if that simply postponed hard decisions about the other tracts, that would be a helpful outcome, considering the environmental stakes.

The Corps is taking public comments on the mining proposal until early July. State agencies also will have a say as to whether the mining can proceed. The economic incentives may be powerful, but with the well-being of the Pamlico River at risk, it's the regulators' duty to keep the phosphate miners in line.