Mining hearing delay predictable

It’s with no surprise that Mosaic postponed the hearing with the Manatee County commission to request mining in East Manatee especially after that disastrous leak of 200 million gallons of “slightly radioactive” water at its Mulberry facility, which may contaminate the drinking water of a large part of Florida.

They used the excuse that the commission was stacked up and that out of the goodness of their heart that they wanted to give them a break by having it changed to January instead of the Sept. 29 date.

It’s more likely they thought an easy “yes” from our commissioners would turn into a problem with more people protesting further mining so soon after news of the Mulberry disaster, especially since it took three weeks to notify the public.

Our county commission may not be that eager right now to rubber stamp their request given this is an election year. I guess they are hoping that putting it off three more months will lessen the impact of the spill, and hope that Floridians have a short attention span.

This story was originally published September 23, 2016 at 2:47 PM with the headline "Mining hearing delay predictable."