At first, we thought the dead fish floating downstream in the Peace River were a result of Hurricane Charley. But at night, we saw the water glow from our flashlights and realized our worst fears... the river was full of phosphates. We had been using the river water for bathing since Saturday morning. Obviously, we no longer go near the river that flows not far from our doorsteps.

The Peace River begins in central Florida and flows south 105 miles to the Charlotte Harbor Estuary. The Peace River is an important source of Florida's drinking water, supplying about 6 million gallons of drinking water every day to 4 counties along the Southwest Coast of Florida, basically those areas now devastated by Hurricane Charley.

To get at the rich deposits of phosphate in the Peace River watershed, since the 1890's, phosphate mining companies have been boring and scraping out huge pits that reach thousands of acres in size. One by-product of the extraction process is clay which is stored in settling ponds. Sometimes, the man-made earthen dams of these clay ponds collapse sending uranium and radium contaminated waste clay into the river which then suffocates fish, flora, and fauna. It also kills the animals depending on that water and flora for survival.

In 1971, a settling pond spill turned Charlotte Harbor "to chocolate milk" according to newspaper accounts at the time. They estimated there were 3 million dead fish back then. In the past, clay slime spills have prevented the Peace River Manasota Water Supply Authority from using river flows for drinking water, forcing counties to seek water supplies elsewhere or rely on stored supplies.

Regardless of any future debunker reports that may attempt to rebuff this article, have no doubt or question that the Peace River is - at this very moment - highly contaminated. All the fish are dead from Arcadia to Charlotte Harbor. The water coming down-stream is muddy and glows at night when flashlights shine on it. The next 2 weeks will prove this beyond any doubt as animals and fowl begin to die after eating the contaminated river fauna and drinking the water. It has happened before. In the future, anyone who drinks water processed from the Peace River, throughout 4 Florida Counties, will be drinking uranium and radium contaminated water. The effects are said to be no different than the depleted uranium in Iraq.

The ironic part of this is that the mining companies have insisted for years that this could never happen. We the people have fought the Florida State environmental permits that have been granted to these foreign owned mining companies, but we have lost every objection we made to protect our environment and drinking water. Few know that the majority of the phosphate fertilizers processed from the Peace River mining sites are sent to China.

Michael Edward

CHARLEY UPDATE: PEACE RIVER CONTAMINATED WITH POISONS *PIC* (views: 762)

lawgiver1 -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 10:21 a.m.

MORE ON THE PEACE RIVER PHOSPHATE MINING CRISIS (views: 392)

LinnCiesla -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 10:30 a.m.

ALTERNATE LINK (views: 71)

LinnCiesla -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 2:27 p.m.

GULF OF MEXICO DEAD ZONE GENERATED BY PHOSPHATES (views: 252)

IZAKOVIC -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 11:30 a.m.

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IZAKOVIC -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 12:04 p.m.

wooden houses are cheaper... right? (views: 239)

FinancialEdEconomica -- Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 12:33 p.m.

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MORE ON THE PEACE RIVER PHOSPHATE MINING CRISIS

Posted By: LinnCiesla

Date: Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 10:30 a.m.

In Response To: CHARLEY UPDATE: PEACE RIVER CONTAMINATED WITH POISONS *PIC* (lawgiver1)

Lawgiver1 asked me to help out with some back-up info ... Linn

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040816/BLOG02/40816062&template=art_blog&EntryNo=5

August 16, 2004, 5:46 pm

Sarasota County residents asked not to use drinking water on irrigation

"As part of an inter-local agreement, Sarasota County Utilities is supplying water to the Peace River Water Treatment Plant in Charlotte County. This agreement will be in effect until the Peace River plant is fully productive or no longer needs supplemental supplies. Peace River's system sustained damage during the storm."

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>From Lawgiver1:

The Peace River utility station is on generator power ONLY. The water pressure is a maximum of 25 psi because of this. The big water plant is only a mile up King's Highway from where I am ob the Peace River. They will run out of reserve water in 2 weeks if they don't get their full system supplied with electric in order to get the purification machinery operating. WORSE is that the water they will be pulling up from the river is phosphate contaminated with uranium and radium from the clay leaking out of the mining settling ponds.

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>From Lawgiver1:

The Peace River water facility was slightly damaged and is on generator power to pump right now. The truth is, they have contaminated water to draw from so they will not go online even if full electric is supplied.

Post all this as a collaberation effort of us both. I'm your eye witness. I'm just too backed up trying to get the other things written about.

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Phosphate mining on the Peace River since the early 1890's. See pic at:

http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/industry/phospate/0869.htm

http://amriversaction.ctsg.com/action/index.asp?step=2&item=17360

Florida's Phosphate Mining Crisis:

http://www.whoseflorida.com/misc_pages/phosphate_mining_crisis.htm

Many more articles about the controversy from the Sun Herald:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=+site:www.sun-herald.com+Peace+River+phosphate+mining

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