Phosphogypsum is a radioactive byproduct made after phosphate rock is turned into fertilizer. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, there are 27 phosphate mines in Florida, with nine currently active. Most are in the central Florida area near Polk and Hillsborough counties. Phosphate itself is safe as it can be used for fertilizer, food preservatives, and animal feed supplements. Earlier this month, the EPA approved a demonstration project that uses phosphogypsum as a road base. This project would happen in Polk County. Critics of the plan warn that Florida’s climate is affecting the safety of the communities surrounding the construction. According to the National Weather Service, when Hurricane Helene landed in Pinellas County and Tampa Bay, it brought a 15-foot surge and about six feet of water, respectively. Hurricane Milton brought tornadoes to Fort Pierce. According to climate research, these weather events are only getting stronger, and the damage they can cause can unearth the chemicals in the new roads.
While the EPA has allowed the pilot project to proceed, it has also opened the floor for “public comment on [the project’s] pending approval” through Nov. 8.
Does it leach from the roadways? Does it leach just as easily from wherever it is piled now? I don't know if this is anything to worry about or not.
ReplyDelete"Allowing" radiation is not a choice. Radioactives ARE present. Bananas, for example, are radioactive- whether you like it or not. It's about that 'matter cannot be created nor destroyed' thing; physics just is. What one CAN do is decide where, how, how much, and in what form radioactive materials are managed. In this case, eventually, the assorted isotopes in phosphate rock wind up (over time) as radon. That's going to happen, and one cannot affect the timing or amount of radon that will be generated. Processing the phosphate rock concentrates the radon producing stuff; the question is whether one would like to deal with it in a locally high concentration, or spread it around. Dilution (and time) is pretty much the option to deal with radon. Conservation groups and EPA have a long history of making hysterical and overwrought decisions about many things, so without digging too deep there's at least a chance of that here. The equities are more than likely that using phosphgypsum - at some level - is a safe alternative, possibly safer, to making big piles and having locally much higher concentrations of radon.
ReplyDeleteWhat Anony and MarkD said. So? Every day Florida is bombarded with more radiation than Canada.
ReplyDeleteJust saying "Radiation" doesn't mean anything. Is it alpha particles, beta particles, gamma particles? Is it cesium or plutonium or thorium or uranium or carbon14 or deuterium or tritium or...
Seriously, there's more harmful radiation released by a coal-fired powerplant and in said slag pile from those plants than from a nuke plant.
Geez. "Oh, NOOOO!!!! RADIATION!!!!! AUGHHHHH!!!"
And do you know who funded all the anti-nuke power organizations? Can anyone say the Soviets through the KGB? And even when the truth came out it's still "No nukes, no radiation."