As Hurricane Milton hits Florida’s west coast with strong winds and pouring rain, environmentalists worry it could spread contaminated residue from the state’s phosphate fertilizer mining industry and other hazardous waste across the peninsula and into vulnerable waterways.
More than 1 billion tons of mildly radioactive phosphogypsum waste is stored in ‘piles’ that resemble huge ponds that are at risk of leaking during heavy storms. Florida has 25 such piles, most concentrated around massive phosphate mines and fertilizer processing plants in the United States central part of the stateand environmentalists say almost all of them are on Milton’s projected path.
“Putting vulnerable sites so close to major waterways at risk of damage from storms is a recipe for disaster,” said Ragan Whitlock, staff attorney at the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity. “These are ticking time bombs.”
Phosphogypsum, a solid waste byproduct of processing phosphate rock into fertilizer, contains radium, which decays to form radon gas. Both radium and radon are radioactive and can cause cancer. Phosphogypsum can also contain toxic heavy metals and other carcinogens such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and nickel.
That trash is even trickier because there’s no easy way to get rid of it, so it piles up and becomes an increasingly large target for storms like monster Milton, which is expected to barrel into central Florida at least late Wednesday. a Category 3, with sustained winds of nearly 130 mph, a possible storm surge of 8 to 12 feet and 16 inches of rain.
A smaller storm, Hurricane Frances, which hit the state’s east coast as a Category 2 and tore through central Florida in 2004, sent 65 million gallons of acidic wastewater from phosphogypsum stacks into nearby waterways, killing thousands of fish and other marine life.
Of particular interest to Milton is the Piney Point wastewater reservoir, which is located on the coast of Tampa Bay and has had structural problems that have caused frequent leaks over the years.
A leak from March 2021 resulted in the release of an estimated 215 million gallons of polluted water into the bay and caused massive fish kills. Another leak in August 2022 released another 4.5 million liters of wastewater. The problem is exacerbated by the bankruptcy filing of the site’s former owner, HRC Holdings, which leaves its management to a court-appointed receiver.
The country’s largest American phosphate producer, The Mosaic Company, owns two stacks at its Riverview facility on the shore of Tampa Bay. In 2016, a sinkhole opened beneath the company’s New Wales Gypstack, spilling millions of liters of contaminated sludge into the state’s main drinking water aquifer. The company said tests showed there were no external impacts from the incident, but the site is at risk of further damage from a storm as powerful as Milton’s.
Asked about preparations for the coming storm, Mosaic pointed to a statement on its website: “Preparations for hurricane season include reviewing the lessons learned from the previous year, updating our preparedness and response plans… and completing of inspections to ensure that all test pumps, generators and other equipment required in severe weather are on site and in good working order.”
Florida and North Carolina are responsible for mining 80% of America’s phosphorus supply, which is important not only for agriculture but also for munitions production.
In addition to the mine stacks, the Tampa Bay area is also home to old mines toxic waste sites which are considered among the worst in the country. A former pesticide manufacturing site, the Stauffer Chemical Co., has contaminated the Anclote River, groundwater and soil. Today it is an EPA Superfund site that has been cleaned up for years.
The EPA posted on its website that it is “ensuring this site is secure from potential impacts from Hurricane Milton.”
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Tuesday it is preparing all available resources critical to the facilities it regulates, and securing state parks and water preserves to minimize storm impacts.
“Right now, we are preparing for the storm locally, both professionally and personally,” Mosaic spokeswoman Ashleigh Gallant said. “If there are any impacts, we will release them publicly after the storm.”
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Biesecker reported from Washington, Dearen from Los Angeles.