Environmental Management Plan

Verdantas (as Flatwoods Consulting Group Inc.) was retained initially by CF Industries, now Mosaic Fertilizer, to install and monitor permanent monitoring transects to satisfy requirements of the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) developed under Water Use Permit Number 20003669.015. The purpose of the EMP is to provide reasonable assurance that onsite wetlands not proposed for mining, offsite wetlands, and nearby existing legal users will be protected from potential dewatering impacts during the mining process on the South Pasture Mine. The evaluation procedure may be generally characterized as Vegetative and Physical Monitoring (VPM). The VPM protocol consists of three widely accepted methods, each used for a specific purpose. The first is called Wetland Assessment Procedure (WAP), developed by the Southwest Florida Water Management District and is used in isolated wetlands. Our team established permanent WAP transects for the VPM in isolated wetlands. 

In addition to the WAP, Verdantas implemented a measure of soil loss (subsidence) within all isolated wetlands. Our team also established permanent monitoring transects for stream (continuous) systems by employing the United States Department of Agriculture Stream Visual Assessment Procedure (SVAP). Finally, a baseline Uniform Mitigation Assessment Method (UMAM) was conducted on all potentially impacted wetlands to determine functions and values that have been lost and how much mitigation would be required to replace them. Wildlife observations were recorded during the annual wetland monitoring and a wildlife observation database was created. We compiled, organized, stored and analyzed all VPM data collected as part of the environmental monitoring and created a Microsoft Access database for all VPM data. Transects are added or removed annually based on the current mine plan.