Controversial Everglades rock mine is scaled back due to legal settlement

A rock-mining project in sugarcane fields near a significant Everglades restoration project is being dramatically scaled back under a settlement announced Thursday. .

Under the deal, the mining operation, which was expected to last 40 years on 8,000 acres, will be limited to about a quarter of that size.

“The applicant sought to push this project through before analyzing how it would affect the Everglades ecosystem,” Tropical Audubon Board President José Francisco Barros said in a statement. “That ‘build first, analyze later’ approach is not how projects intended to benefit the Everglades should be evaluated.”

Tropical Audubon challenged a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit last year after the agency approved the rock mine in Palm Beach County on land owned by U.S. Sugar and Okeelanta Corp. Tropical argued that allowing water from the mine into the Everglades could harm habitat, wildlife and ongoing restoration work.

U.S. Sugar and infrastructure contractor Phillips & Jordan proposed mining 8,000 acres for about 40 years and eventually using pits as a water-storage project on land just north of a 10,500-acre reservoir and 6,000-acre treatment marsh being constructed by the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of Everglades restoration. The projects are expected to cost taxpayers more than $3 billion.

The settlement calls for the permit to limit mining to just over 2,200 acres on land that is already being mined.

This report was produced by Miami Herald news partner WLRN Public Media.