It doesn't always "wash away"
Fertilizer giant
Mosaic Co. has settled with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in their hazardous waste lawsuit, to the tune of
$2 billion dollars.
Mosaic makes a commonly used phosphorus-based fertilizer, the production of which creates tons of solid waste and polluted water.
Mosaic stores the waste in 500-foot-high piles that span more than 600 acres at eight facilities in Florida and Louisiana. The company's improper handling of its waste poses a threat to the environment and human health, the government said.
The breakdown of that $2 billion total according to
MarketWatch:
When the settlements become effective, the company will invest at least $170 million at its fertilizer manufacturing facilities to modify certain onsite waste management practices and implement innovative procedures to recover and beneficially use resources. The company also will place $630 million of cash into trust as financial assurance to support the closure and long-term care of its phosphogypsum stack systems. As part of the agreements with the government, Mosaic will pay a penalty of $8 million and will conduct two environmental projects valued at $2.2 million in Florida and Louisiana.
To put things in perspective,
back in 2013:
The world’s biggest phosphate fertilizer producer, Minnesota’s Mosaic Co., will get bigger with a $1.4 billion deal to buy the Florida-based phosphate business of CF Industries Inc.
The deal announced Monday will give Plymouth-based Mosaic a large mine southeast of the Tampa Bay area and close to Mosaic’s existing phosphate operations. The purchase also includes a CF processing plant, which means Mosaic can forego building a proposed new plant of its own — saving $500 million.
That same year.
The CF purchase marks the second major deal Mosaic has done this year in the phosphate sector. In March, the company announced that it would invest $1 billion in a joint venture with a Saudi company to mine phosphate and produce fertilizer in Saudi Arabia. That deal is Mosaic’s biggest international investment to date.
It's a good settlement because it forces the company to do the investment in safety and infrastructure they should have already been doing. It's a bad settlement in that their penalty is virtually nothing and
they should have already been investing that money in safety and infrastructure.
11:20 AM PT: Commenter benamery21 points out that the $630 million trust is what is supposed to grow to $1.8 billion in investments. So the settlement is closer to $800 million.