Public Comment Sought on Radioactive Road Pilot

Just as the Tampa Bay area was bracing for what was then forecast to be a Category 5 hurricane, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved Mosaic Fertilizer’s request to use their radioactive waste in the company’s private road project. The pilot project could pave the way for further use of the radioactive material in public roadways as Mosaic uses this project to provide information to the EPA about the suitability of phosphogypsum in roads.

“The EPA issued a pending approval of a request from Mosaic Fertilizer to use phosphogypsum in a small-scale road pilot project on a private road at the company’s New Wales facility located in Mulberry,” the EPA wrote in a prepared statement on October 9, just hours before Hurricane Milton was expected to make direct landfall in the Tampa Bay area. 

Their preliminary approval, with public comment sought through November 8, allows Mosaic to use phosphogypsum, a material that is stacking up to more than a billion tons located on fertilizer companies’ properties throughout Florida, as road base. 

People were reading the news of the EPA approval as public roads not far from the Mosaic facilities were crumbling and caving-in due to Hurricane Milton. Days later, Mosaic released a public statement that toxic wastewater leaked from another facility near Tampa.

EPA’s approval comes after the Florida Department of Transportation published the findings of their study of phosphogypsum in roads in May, as required when Gov. Ron DeSantis approved HB 1191, which required DOT to study the suitability of phosphogypsum as road base by April 1, 2024. DOT’s study did not include health, public safety or environmental reviews, but rather compiled data from previous studies by other organizations and fertilizer industry leaders on the durability of the radioactive waste for road construction. 

In 1992 the EPA determined that the use of phosphogypsum in road construction presents an unacceptable risk to public health. Since then, it has required that phosphogypsum be stored in stacks on fertilizer companies’ private land because the radon it emits can cause cancer, genetic damage and birth deformities in addition to other public safety risks and environmental harm.

Mosaic spokesperson Jackie Barron was reached on Thursday, October 10, after Hurriance Milton had hit the area as a deescalated Category 3. Barron said she was surprised by the EPA’s timing. 

“I saw it hasn’t totally been approved,” said Barron. “It’s not like something is going to get started tomorrow,” she said.

The public is invited to submit comments to the EPA on the pilot road project through Nov. 8 and if new concerns are brought forward, the project could be denied or revised, EPA reports.

“The risk posed by this project to the public is extremely low,” the EPA statement reads. 

However, the EPA stated in a 1993 report that “regardless of the radium-226 concentration in phosphogypsum, the use of phosphogypsum in road construction always resulted in a maximum individual risk significantly greater than the presumptively safe level.”

Since this road project is on the company's private land, as are the phosphogypsum stacks, the public risk may not be considered imminent, despite the pathway it paves toward future use, risk to road workers public or private and a change in EPA science to industry science, critics warn. 

Public entry to the Mosaic property in Mulberry is prohibited, according to signs outside the facility.

“EPA’s review of the Mosaic Fertilizer request found that it provided all the information required for a complete application, and that the proposed use of phosphogypsum was as protective of human health as placement in a stack, as required by the Clean Air Act regulations at 40 CFR Part 61, Subpart R,” according to the EPA statement.

In February, the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit conservation organization, along with other environmental organizations, had filed an intent to sue the EPA for failed oversight and regulation of toxic and radioactive waste from phosphate mining and fertilizer production. The lawsuit was not filed as negotiations continue, but that could change, said Regan Whitlock, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

"Plaintiffs are available to file suit at any moment and are seeking to resolve the issue with the agency ahead of further litigation,” Whitlock said.

The Center’s opposition to Mosaic’s pilot study is clear and based on human and environmental health. 

“Mosaic is claiming this is a small pilot study that is needed to further the science of phosphogypsum in roads and yet Mosaic is the one doing it,” said Whitlock.

“This is industry-funded, industry-backed and industry-led on their facility,” he added. “They can come up with the conclusion they want,” said Whitlock. 

From lawsuits to prayers and public comments, the pushback to using this material in roads is mounting. 

Garrett Stuart, a biologist of Ochopee, organized prayer walks with guidance from Betty Osceola of the Panther Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, along the Tamiami Trail through the Florida Everglades. The second Saturday of each month from late summer of 2023 through spring of 2024, while Mosaic sought this project approval and FDOT conducted their study, walkers from Collier County, throughout Florida and other states, trekked approximately five mile stretches, spanning hours with prayer, in heat or rain, noting the toxic runoff that would occur to the nearby water if U.S. 41 were paved with the material. 

Meanwhile, billions of tons of radioactive waste continue to mount and while the cancer-causing phosphogypsum is not nearly as radioactive as the leaks from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine in 1986, for example, phosphogypsum is still cancer-causing by all accounts, Whitlock said. 

“We need to omit cancer-causing radon gas from our natural world. This is accepting a higher risk of radon emissions than was allowed before. That’s a step in the wrong direction in 2024,” said Whitlock.

The amount of phosphogypsum in Florida alone points to a need for change, he said. “We have to find a way toward regenerative sustainable agricultural practices,” said Whitlock.

Phosphate fertilizer production is extremely inefficient, exclaimed Stuart. 

Creating 1 ton of usable phosphorus acid for fertilizer creates 5 tons of phosphogypsum, he noted. 

Phosphogypsum is stacked in 25 mounds that are 100s of feet tall and 100s of feet wide with millions of gallons of acidic wastewater on top of each.

A catastrophe awaits Florida with each pending storm, Stuart exclaimed. 

Using the phosphogypsum as a base in public roads would not add up to a solution to removing the stacks due to their large volume, Barron has acknowledged. 

Whitlock is concerned that it’s a way for the fertilizer giant to make more money from taxpayers using a radioactive waste product from a commercial operation for roads. 

DOT seeks the use of phosphogypsum due to increased cost of other aggregates, according to a DOT budget. That depends on prices Mosaic may charge, should approval for public roads be allowed down the line. 

If the EPA were to next allow public roads to be paved with phosphogypusm, the toxicity would be spread, not diminished, warned Stuart.

"The solution to pollution is not dilution. Spreading this poison as a substrate to build roads with does not make it any safer than what it’s ever been,” he said.

Such projects using phosphogypsum will continue to be considered for approval or denial by the EPA on a case-by-case basis, EPA spokesperson Shayla Powell had said. 

“We do not need to be paving with it. We do not need to make roadways across the southeast into other ticking time bombs,” said Whitlock. “No matter how you shake it out, this introduces more cancer into our natural world and there is no other way around,” he said.

Hurricane Milton Leads to Toxic Spill at Mosaic

Days after the Hurricane, on Monday, October 14, Mosaic released a statement saying their Riverview site in the Tampa Bay area discharged contaminated water from their gyp stack. 

“Our Riverview site, which has operated on Tampa Bay for the last century, received nearly 15 inches of rain during Hurricane Milton less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene. 

A water collection system supporting our closed gypstack became overwhelmed, pushing excess water out a manhole on our property,” Mosaic reported in the public statement. 

Contaminated water was discharged into Tampa Bay.

“The volume may have been greater than the 17,500 gallon reporting standard. We expect water quality impacts, if any, to be modest,” Mosaic officials announced. 

Residents and environmentalists from Tampa down to the Everglades and elsewhere are concerned about the phosphogypsum and its use in public roads due to risks to human health, water quality and wildlife. 

“We need more regulation of these phosphate stacks,” said Whitlock. “We need to make them safer. We need more regulation to diminish the problems we have,” he said.

Project Described as a Study

The project is set up as a study. According to the description provided by the EPA, phosphogypsum for the pilot project will be taken from the New Wales South stack. There will be four sections of test road containing phosphogypsum in the road base, each 500 feet long and 24 feet wide. These will be constructed in place of the existing road adjacent to the New Wales stacks. Four control sections of road not containing phosphogypsum will also be constructed, each 300 feet long and 24 feet wide. Test road sections will contain no more than 50 percent phosphogypsum by weight in a single 10 inch layer of road base. Phosphogypsum will not be included in pavement, nor extend beyond paved areas of the road. Within 90 days of completing the test phase, Mosaic shall submit to the EPA and to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection a complete final report on the test, including conclusions on the suitability of phosphogypsum as a component of road base.

Additional details are available at epa.gov/radiation/phosphogypsum.

Public Comments

The EPA is accepting public comment on Mosaic’s PG road project until November 8. EPA will review the public comments to determine if they raise human health or environmental impacts not previously considered or if they alter the finding that use in the road is at least as protective as leaving the phosphogypsum in the stack. 

As of October 15, one public comment was published by the EPA on the regulations .gov website.

"Please do not approve this absolute insane idea of putting radioactive waste in our roads. Not even on a trial basis,” exclaimed Elaine Trotter. 

Trotter warned the EPA that Mosaic’s waste presented a threat and that campaign contributions likely led to a lack of government oversight.