Bounty and Threat in a Place Called Bone Valley
Phosphate mining has long meant jobs — and worries — in Central Florida.
Ambivalence is growing as a mining company seeks to significantly expand
its reach, with some fearing the land and water will “never be the same.”
Collaboration with photojournalist Dane Rhys, published in the Washington Post October, 2021.
“Our mission statement is we help the world grow the food it needs — it’s a fact that our people are proud of. For them, it means jobs, but jobs with purpose because they understand that at the end of the day, when you're breaking bread around the dinner table, odds are it started right here in central and southwest Florida with phosphate.”
Canoeists on the tannin-stained waters of the Peace River, which Native Seminoles call Tallackchopo.
Formerly mined land in the process of rehabilitation. “The whole nature of the river has changed extraordinarily as a result of 100 years of strip mining … Part of the phosphate land is just going to get sacrificed. It’ll never be the same.”
An alligator upstream of the Peace River's terminus at Charlotte Harbor.
A ‘stack’ of phosphogypsum, the radioactive waste from processing phosphate, in Bartow.