Mine Plan Would Erase Wetlands: PCS Phosphate’s Proposal Threatens 2,500 Acres, the Most Ever in N.C

A massive Beaufort County strip-mining operation wants to expand its extraction of phosphate ore in one of the state’s most environmentally fragile areas. The proposal by PCS Phosphate, if approved, would represent the single largest destruction of wetlands permitted in the state — 2,500 acres including the headwaters of seven creeks near the Pamlico River. The rich deposit of black phosphate...