Environmental
Land reclamation has been required by Florida law since July 1, 1975. Today, every acre mined must be reshaped. Long before draglines move into a new area, our planners already are designing how the site will look in the future - forests, wetlands, uplands, typical Florida scrub, parks, pastures, building sites for homes and businesses.
The IMC-Agrico reclamation team puts special emphasis on creating quality habitat for wildlife. This is important because so many wildlife areas in Florida are being lost to urbanization. In 1996, IMC-Agrico reclaimed 3,900 acres, about the same amount of acreage that was mined.
It takes about 10,000 gallons of water to mine and process one ton of phosphate rock. IMC-Agrico re-uses 98 percent of the water used in mining and processing. Some of the mines are at 100 percent. Four Corners, for example, is the biggest mine in the industry and for two years has re-used virtually every drop of water used for mining and processing.
Our smallest mine, Hopewell, was the first to not pump any "new" water from the ground. To continue improving water-use methods, IMC-Agrico formed a special Water Conservation Task Force. Members of this group are dedicated to finding new and better ways to conserve ground water. A big part of the effort is identifying ways to store more rainwater, which can then be used in the operations.