Mosaic Co. and the Sierra Club said Tuesday that they have settled environmental litigation that was blocking the expansion of a huge phosphate mine in Florida.
The South Fort Meade mine in south central Florida is important to Plymouth-based Mosaic, one of the world's largest fertilizer producers, because it is particularly cost-efficient and historically accounts for about 20 percent of all U.S. phosphate production. Phosphate is a key fertilizer ingredient.
The main Meade mine is largely played out, and Mosaic has been counting on a 7,000-acre expansion. But the Sierra Club and other environmental groups have claimed the expansion would damage wetlands, successfully getting a federal court to halt it last summer.
The litigation has cast a pall of uncertainty over Mosaic's phosphate operations. "It's been a bit of an overhang on the company's stock price over the last several quarters," said Jeff Stafford, an analyst at Morningstar Inc.
"The fact that this low-cost phosphate mine will now be able to operate again is a big positive for the company .... I think you should see a positive move in the stock when trading begins [Wednesday]."
The settlement was announced after the market closed Tuesday. Mosaic closed at $56.91, up $1.28 or 2.3 percent. In after-hours trading, which is often an indicator of a stock's next-day performance, Mosaic was up another 3.65 percent.
The settlement calls for Mosaic to donate to Florida or a nonprofit organization a 4,171-acre tract of land known as Peaceful Horse Ranch. Mosaic bought the land for about $10 million in December.
The company will also preserve 130 acres of land that it would have otherwise mined, do certain environmental mitigation and monitoring on its site and take other conservation actions close to a nearby river.
