Phosphogypsum Archives

October 11, 2024

In Hurricane Milton’s wake, toxic “gypstacks” threaten Tampa Bay area

By Shannon Kelleher

As southwest Florida reels from the impact of Hurricane Milton this week, the first hurricane to directly hit the Tampa Bay area in a century, environmentalists are bracing for another possible impact – the contamination of local waterways from towering stacks of toxic industrial waste in the storm’s path.

When phosphate is processed into fertilizers for farmland, enormous quantities of phosphogypsum are left behind as heaps of concrete-like waste called “gypstacks,” which are topped with liquid waste ponds. Most US phosphate production takes place in Florida, with 25 of the 30 gypstacks located in the Sunshine State – a quantity totaling over a billion tons. The waste contains heavy metals as well as radium, which decays into a radioactive gas that causes lung cancer, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

“We refer to [the stacks] as ‘Florida’s Mountains’,” said Ragan Whitlock, staff attorney for the environmental nonprofit the Center for Biological Diversity, noting that the heaps of toxic chemical waste are each hundreds of feet wide and hundreds of feet tall. “Lesser storms than hurricanes have created massive structural integrity problems at these stack systems,” he said.

Of Florida’s 25 gypstacks, 22 were “at least generally in Hurricane Milton’s track,” said Whitlock, with three located directly near the bay. Whitlock said he is worried about pollution from the stacks impacting both the bay and the Floridan aquifer, which almost 10 million people depend on for drinking water.

The largest US producer of phosphate fertilizer, The Mosaic Company, confirmed in an email Friday that stormwater at its Riverview site, where it stores toxic phosphogypsum waste from fertilizer production, made its way into Tampa Bay after a water collection system onsite became overwhelmed following the hurricane.

“At this time, we believe some of that impacted stormwater made its way to an outfall which discharges into Tampa Bay,” said the Mosaic spokesperson. “The issue was addressed yesterday and is not continuing. The volume may have been greater than the 17,500 gallon reporting standard. We expect water quality impacts, if any, to be modest.”

Mosaic said in a September 30 statement that early assessments showed “limited damage” to its facilities following Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that hit Florida on September 27, although its Riverview facility “experienced water intrusion caused by the storm surge.” In an early June statement, Mosaic said it was “prepped and ready” for hurricane season.

February 22, 2024

Citing “toxic mountains,” conservation groups file notice of intent to sue EPA

By Johnathan Hettinger

US regulators are failing to address toxic “open-air dumps” that in some cases tower many hundreds of feet tall and hundreds of acres wide, according to a group of conservation and public health advocates who have filed a notice of intent to sue the government to force protective action.

The advocacy groups represent people in multiple states who live near the manmade dumps that store massive amounts of a radioactive substance called phosphogypsum, which is generated in the process of creating phosphoric acid for fertilizer. Phosphogypsum and its leachate can contain several hazardous substances, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and chromium. These substances are considered carcinogenic and known to induce damage to multiple organs, even at lower levels of exposure, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Communities in Florida, Texas, Louisiana and other states are at risk from these dumps, according to the groups. There are four “Superfund” abandoned hazardous waste sites in Idaho, Illinois and Mississippi, where phosphate plants once operated.

The fertilizer industry creates 46 million tons of phosphogypsum each year, more than the amount of regulated hazardous waste produced in all other industries combined, according to the notice of intent to sue. In Florida, alone, there are more than one billion tons of phosphogypsum stored across 25 stacks, the groups say.

“The waste is not just toxic, it’s not just carcinogenic. It’s radioactive,” said Jaclyn Lopez, director of the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University, who is providing legal representation to the groups. Lopez recently authored a legal review finding that these plants are largely concentrated in low-wealth and minority communities across the United States.

“This has the potential to impact truly millions of people,” Lopez said.