View Single Post
Old 08-13-2009, 09:21 PM   #89 (permalink)
sbl
 
sbl's Avatar
 
Location: Pensacola, FL
Zone: 8/9
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 1,013
BananaBucks : 65,616
Feedback: 0 / 0%
Said "Thanks" 177 Times
Was Thanked 731 Times in 395 Posts
Said "Welcome to Bananas" 154 Times
Default Re: The Future of Fertilizer

Quote:
Originally Posted by adrift View Post
Yup.

I live in the county that sits right in the middle of the Bone Valley Deposit, the deposit used to produce about 75% of the US supply and 25% of the world supply of phosphate. My county is the most heavily mined, but there are mines in the counties all around mine.

(We are also former #1 citrus producer in FL, home of Cypress Gardens, Bok Tower, and lots of garage meth labs. If you are in to water gardens, you may have heard the word "Slocum." The old Slocum store (and home?) was here too. It closed before I moved to town, and the building was torn down while I lived here. Remnants of the plants, ponds, and landscaping are still visible.)

Here is the executive summary:

Environmental issues (regulations, toxic spills) have caused some slowdowns in domestic phosphate production and pushed it to 3rd world countries and increased cost.

As the mines in this county get used up the mining moves south, but they are pushing up against the south county line (Hardee) and are getting resistance from communities down there to opening more mines. If they can get the permits, some supply will be opened up and prices may ease some. If they can't get permits, price will remain high or rise.

They expect the deposit to run out in 25 to 50 years.

When you need something to put you to sleep, read about my home:
Polk County, Florida - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A 5 part story:
Sun - Florida: The State of Phosphate part 1
Sun - Florida: The State of Phosphate part 2
Sun - Florida: The State of Phosphate part 3
Sun - Florida: The State of Phosphate part 4
Sun - Florida: The State of Phosphate part 5
I was a marine scientist before I retired and studied eutrophication in estuaries---it was a long held philosophy that P was the nutrient that caused eutrophication in freshwaters, but that N was the limiting nutrient in marine and esturaine waters. However, we eventually did test here and found that there was already so much N coming in thru groundwater that P was actually the limiting nutrient. I think P has been implicated in some of the eutrophication in South FL estuaries as well--comming from mine runoffs and leaching from deposits as well as runoff from sugar plantations.

Adrift, Thanks for the link--I'm glad to hear that FL has limited P input on lawns--it is basically not needed here.

Last edited by sbl : 08-13-2009 at 09:28 PM.
sbl is offline   Reply With Quote Send A Private Message To sbl
Said thanks: