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Florida state of emergency with millions of gallons of “radioactive wastewater”
- reustle 6y agoHere's an article from 2017 with a bit more information on the local industry and surrounding issues. https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/florida-phosphate https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/f...
- BrianOnHN 6y agoGood article on the background, thanks!
- londons_explore 6y agoSounds like a case of "it's too expensive to deal with this wastewater, so let's just put it in a big pond and hope the dam bursts and we can claim it was all a big accident" Mining industries are especially famous for this - there are ponds of waste that are 70 years old, just waiting for their moment to escape...
- horstmeyer 6y agoDo you have some more information about where those old ponds are located? Thanks!
- leetrout 6y agoCoal operations have slurry ponds where they store the sludge from washing the coal. And coal power plants have fly ash ponds which are bad for the environment. We’re shutting down the coal plants but these ponds will be around forever. Here is a map of ash ponds from power plants https://earthjustice.org/features/map-coal-ash-contaminated-sites https://earthjustice.org/features/map-coal-ash-contaminated-... Here’s a link to the slurry spill I lived through with no water for days https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_spill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_County_coal_slurry_sp... And here’s some pictures of the “impoundments” https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8693/coal-sludge-impoundments-west-virginia https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/8693/coal-sludge-im... Edit to add this quote: “ Although coal impoundments have a relatively low rate of failure, their extreme size—some hold more than a billion gallons of sludge—makes any breach potentially devastating.”
- horstmeyer 6y agoThank you! Very interesting and frightening.
- vgeek 6y agoAnother large spill that hardly anyone has heard of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_fly_ash_slurry_spill https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Fossil_Plant_coal_f...
- IgorPartola 6y agoI am curious what you could do with all this. I was under the impression that ash could be composted pretty well. It is organic material after all. Or is the issue the other added chemicals?
- pfdietz 6y agoAsh is not organic material.
- vgeek 6y agoAsh from wood may be compost-able, but I think the leftovers from burning coal can contain arsenic, mercury and lead among other things. There are also instances of the fly ash being radioactive. u/leetrout hints that they are from WV/EKY area, where hilly terrain can make stashing fly ash in slurry ponds less visible (but more susceptible to contaminating small streams undetected). Specifically in the eastern KY/OH regions, there massive impoundments <500 yards from navigable rivers (since barges transport to plants and water used in generation), so if they break, the sludge won't have far to travel to contaminate major waterways. https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html - information regarding some of the byproducts.
- m4rtink 6y agoPower plant and incinerator fly ash contains heavy metals and other poisonous substances so needs to be separated to prevent environment contamination. But I guess you could turn it into bricks and isolate those instead or even use them as building materials in some form of infrastructure.
- smackay 6y agoThere is a gruesome death trap in Montana, https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.22/latest-thousands-of-snow-geese-die-in-a-toxic-lake-in-montana https://www.hcn.org/issues/48.22/latest-thousands-of-snow-ge...
- londons_explore 6y agoThe trick is to make sure there are a few leaks in each containment pond so the waste slowly leaks into the water table. Then when it rains the volume of waste doesn't increase.
- brudgers 6y agoThere's not much that can be done with it because essentially (not basically) it is acid. Phosphate mining uses sulfuric acid to extract the phosphates. These are large scale operations and produce a lot of water with a pH of 1.5-2. There's no comparable industrial process that can consume it as input. So it sits. The gypsum stacks are the other waste byproduct. But it's less problematic because it doesn't flow, it just sits. The low level radiation prevents it's incorporation into commodity products such as gypsum wall board. The byproducts get conflated because for convenience the radioactive gypsum waste from phosphate mining is used to contain the acidic sludge from phosphate mining. But it's the acidic sludge that is the fast acting ecological disaster. The gypsum will give you cancer of course, but as Joe Jackson sings everything gives you cancer. [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQyru5ACmA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsQyru5ACmA
- rvense 6y agoIs this the kind of mines that produce phosphate for fertilizer?
- dismalpedigree 6y agoYes. That’s exactly what it is used for. I don’t recall the exact amounts, but the Tampa Bay area produces a sizable share of all phosphate in the world.
- lisper 6y ago> There's not much that can be done with it because essentially (not basically) it is acid Couldn't you neutralize it by (say) dumping in a bunch of baking soda? Or lye? (Hm, what actually happens if you mix sulfuric acid with lye? Do they neutralize each other, or turn into something even nastier than the sum of its parts? That'll teach me to blow off high school chemistry.)
- jwmerrill 6y ago> what actually happens if you mix sulfuric acid with lye This reaction produces sodium sulfate (a salt) plus water and heat [1]. No idea if this is practical, though. Maybe it’s difficult to source sufficient quantities of some base to neutralize the acid. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate#Chemical_industry https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_sulfate#Chemical_indu...
- IAmEveryone 6y agoQuotes for the ages: "The water meets water quality standards for marine waters with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen and total ammonia nitrogen," "Marine water" itself will kill with three or four easy gulps, but I guess this wastewater is going into the ocean? It still sounds a bit too much like "yellow, except for the color, which is blue". Plus I'd expect any industrial wastewater to have lots of fun contaminants they haven't tested for and/or just don't have explicit limits set. "A very aggressive monitoring operation" There's a term I've been missing my whole life. It's my go-to action item priority one from now on when faced with... "... everything possible to prevent a true catastrophe." And untrue catastrophe?
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoThe stack in danger of breaching was filled 8 years ago with sea water from dredging the port, and it is supporting wild life now, for what that's worth. In my experience, flora and fauna will grow under nearly any conditions, though.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoAnd even flourish - lack of humans more than compensates high radioactivity levels, as the Tchernobyl example has shown.
- brudgers 6y agoIt's not the radioactivity, it's the pH of 1.5-2. It kills most organisms quickly. There's no long term for long term radiation effects to manifest.
- brudgers 6y agoPhosphate industry waste water has a pH of 1.5-2. The ponds are sterile and a lovely azure despite what Google Maps shows. Nothing grows on their banks naturally, though with substantial remediation over a couple of decades, it's possible to surround the pond with a ring of pines and grass...this is the Florida phosphate industry's "land and lakes" program. From time to time Florida developers have built housing developments on "land and lakes" tracts. It usually ends badly because the ground is unstable (still settling after all being mined), though post-tensioned prestressed concrete slab foundations can be used to reduce cracking (but not eventually uneven floors). In my experience with phosphate industry sludge ponds, nothing much grows. I just looked at aerials from a tract southeast of Bartow that was under consideration for development in 1997. It had been out of service for almost twenty years back then. The ponds are no longer obviously toxic, but there is still does not appear to be normal Florida native vegetation along any of the shorelines. Not surprising given how acidic phosphate sludge water is. The fact that sea water can be stored in the leaking stacks over in Manatee county speaks to how sterile they are. The salinity of seawater is deadly to typical terrestrial plants.
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoI work there sometimes. They have a lady that rides around in a golf cart, taking water samples and testing, fulltime. I suppose thats their "aggressive monitoring".
- BlueTemplar 6y agoSo, how radioactiove exactly it is ? I suppose it's the very bad kind of radioactive too, since water can easily be ingested ?
- curryst 6y agoI don't think there are any kinds of radiation that are safe to ingest. But yeah, I would guess it's gamma radiation.
- colechristensen 6y agoHave you ever eaten a banana?
- shagie 6y agoFollowing up on this... https://xkcd.com/radiation/ https://xkcd.com/radiation/ Eating a banana is slightly more radiation than living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant (and 1/3 the amount from living within 50 miles of a coal plant).
- BlueTemplar 6y agoMy point is that some types of radiation carriers are easier to ingest (or breathe in) than others.
- h2odragon 6y agoI'm guessing "not very radioactive" https://weather.com/news/news/2021-04-03-leak-at-florida-phosphate-plant-tampa-bay-manatee-county-piney-point https://weather.com/news/news/2021-04-03-leak-at-florida-pho... > Hopes said Saturday afternoon that snook live in the pond that is in danger of collapsing and he has seen ducks swimming on top of it.
- BlueTemplar 6y agoSo did animals in Chernobyl.
- foxhop 6y agoIndustrial Agricultural is a biohazard. We need to embrace the methods we used to feed ourselves for millions of years, with nature instead of in opposition of nature. Reference: https://archive.org/details/permaculture1adesignersmanualbybillmollison https://archive.org/details/permaculture1adesignersmanualbyb...
- zokier 6y agoYou mean cut the world population by order of magnitude and have majority of the populace slave on fields for a pittance. Sounds delightful.
- foxhop 6y agoThat's not at all what I said or mean. Working with nature means using natural systems to produce food with less human energy and fossil fuels, and chemicals, and cutting down forests. A quick quote from the referenced work: """ The pragmatic and practical approach to the main body of this work largely omits reference to those visions or beliefs classifiable as spiritual or mystical; not because these are not a normal part of human experience, but because they are arrived at as a result of long contemplation or intense involvement with the mysteries that eternally surround us. We may “dream" understanding, but it is something we cannot demand, define, or teach to others; it is for each of us to develop. There are things that nobody else can help us with, but in a book written to help people make real-life decisions, to build new landscapes, to regenerate damaged forests, and to lighten our load on earth, the present need is for clear and practical approaches. In the preceding chapters, well-tried and common- sense techniques and strategies of earth restoration have been described and figured. All of this comes to naught if we, as a people, continue to invest in arms and destruction, to permit land abuse, and to fail to tackle the social and political impediments to reclaiming desertified and abused lands, or even to prevent the poisoning of land. Thus, the following sections give strategies for change in the social and economic areas of society. These strategies may, in fact, be of more assistance to real change than the skills of land management, for society has far more competent farmers and engineers than it has ethical ... """
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- chiefalchemist 6y ago> "For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry creates 5 tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste..." Is that correct? That sounds unsustainable, as well as unprofitable. Also, is it safe to presume that if the cost of proper disposal was reflected in the price of food, food would be significantly more expensive? Finally, are there particular foods this is used for?
- pfdietz 6y agoPhosphate is the most limiting long term global mineral resource. Eventually we're going to have to mine it from average rocks (at 0.1% concentration). There is no substitute if you want agriculture.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ta988 6y agoAlmost every crop. The problem is also that those phosphorous fertilizer are horribly inefficient , plants dont absorb much and most of it gets leached. So out of this 1 ton not a lot gets absorbed by the plants. To this, we need to add the fact that phosphorous reserves are limited, some estimate that we will reach the peak P in 2030. Maybe then we will be forced to think about more sustainable approaches?
- samus 6y agoIn the past, people used their own manure and that of animals to fertilize fields. Manure contains lots of phosphorus as animals actually absorb only a small percentage from nutrition. Urbanization broke this cycle. Sewer systems got established and the phosphorus doesn't end up on the fields anymore. It eventually reaches the rivers and seas and passes into the sediment. What a waste (pun intended). Instead, people started to mine graveyards (for bones) and guano on remote pacific islands... Edit: Urine might work even better because reprocessing it is way simpler than dealing with manure. The nitrate and sodium levels have to be adjusted. Also, excreted pharmaceuticals have to be neutralized. Meanwhile, with manure one has to deal with pathogens, eggs of parasitic worms and a host of other ingredients, which might be difficult to predict in urban settings.
- antattack 6y agoResults of a leak that happened in 1997: "amid heavy rains, a dam broke atop one of two gypsum stacks at the Mulberry Phosphates plant on State Road 60, unleashing a 56-million gallon spill of the acidic wastewater into the Alafia River. The pollution killed everything in its path for 42 miles, eventually rolling into Hillsborough Bay. The death toll included more than 1 million baitfish and shellfish and 72,900 gamefish near the river’s mouth, 377 acres of damaged trees and other vegetation along the riverbank, and an unknown number of alligators. When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and shut down." https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/florida-phosphate https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/news-and-profiles/2017/04/f...
- voisin 6y ago> When state officials hit the company with a multimillion-dollar fine for the damage done, it declared bankruptcy and shut down. This makes me furious. The employees and directors all go about their lives elsewhere with nary a scratch despite causing such a disaster. This is the problem with capitalism. Privatize profits, socialize losses. The only solution is to force companies to put up bonds or insurance sufficient to ensure this kind of devastation is properly paid for by private parties.
- mc32 6y agoIf it’s enabled by capitalism, how do we explain Chernobyl, or the fouling of soil by China’s rate earth mining, etc? Have the management and employees of Soviet era enviro disasters gone to jail?
- BobbyJo 6y agoYeah, I think people conflate 'capitalism' and 'insufficient regulation'. Capitalism is a framework that requires regulation, even more so than communism or socialism, since the regulations are what defines how the markets work.
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- Nodraak 6y agoTL;DR: eating 1 kg of phosphogypsum each day yields 36 mSv/year. Conclusion: very very far from life-threatening ; nobody is going to die or get cancer because of this. Oh God. This is Fukushima radioactive waters all again. I'm pissed: global warming is serious, and nuclear is our best bet. We dont need this fear-mongering non sense. Anyway, let's get to the facts and see how radioactive and dangerous this thing actually is. Methodologie from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose, section "Source of radioactivity". Here is the data: 1. Central Florida phosphogypsum averages 26 pCi/g radium 2. Radium: 10**-7 Sv/Bq This gives: 26 pCi/g radium * 3.7 * 10**10 Bq/Ci * 10**-7 Sv/Bq (radium) = 0.100 mSv per Kg of phosphogypsum So, if someone eats 1 kg of phosphogypsum per day, that would be 0.100 * 365 = 36 mSv/year. Background dose is 5-10 mSv/year, a plane pilot or X-Ray machine operator gets around 25-50 mSv/year, an astronaut something like 500 mSv/year. So, eating 365 kg per year will yield a higher than background dose, but nothing dangerous. I mean, it's probably dangerous to eat so much of this chemical stuff, but not because of radioactivity. Sources: 1. https://web.archive.org/web/20150219224641/http://www1.fipr.state.fl.us/PhosphatePrimer/0/684AE64864D115FE85256F88007AC781 2. https://web.archive.org/web/20121026093251/https://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/docs/federal/520-1-88-020.pdf - Page 156 and following ; p175 for Radium 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum
- linuxftw 6y agoJust imagine the similar situations and much worse elsewhere in the world. Mining rare elements and poisoning native lands. Industrial titans have done an amazing job at shifting environmental focus from pollution to an invisible, harmless gas. Genetically engineering crops so we can spray them with pesticides, I wonder where the wastewater from manufacturing those pesticides goes. Probably into the Mississippi river.
- lolthishuman 6y agoDidn’t someone just hack Florida’s water or sewer system?
- peanut_worm 6y agoIt was just the water system of a small city, just one county over from this. I need to get out of this state.
- lolthishuman 6y agoAnd I got downvoted for suggesting such. Shows you the state of things.
- markhahn 6y agoYes, but is the company still delivering profits to investors? After all, our civilization depends on continuity of klepto-capitalism...
- CrazyCatDog 6y agoThis coming at the heels of Matt Gaetz suggesting that Miami with in abundant clean resources can become a crypto mining Mecca. What endless flow of energy you ask? Nuclear... (can’t find the link all that comes up is the sex trafficking charge)
- dismalpedigree 6y agoThis has nothing to do with nuclear power. The radiation is naturally occurring. Its just a huge accumulation of it in one place.
- diplodocusaur 6y agoManatee County, Florida not Florida
- freeopinion 6y agoNevada is currently considering a "Bad Actors in Mining" bill to ban individuals from future business opportunities if they walk away without proper cleanup. https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/81st2021/Bill/7477/Text https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/81st2021/Bill/7477...
- freeopinion 6y agoI'll just put this out there: Let's say a company spends 50 years building up acid ponds or radioactive tailings or what have you. Then new management comes on board and is appalled and tries to start cleaning things up, but realizes they are falling farther behind, so they divert more and more resources to cleaning up. And it drives the company into the ground because the cleanup now costs more money than the company's revenues. We punish the current management if they close down to prevent making things worse? We let the millionaires from the last 50 years ride off into the sunset and pin it on the last one out the door? Edit: typos
- dunce2021 6y agoYes, capitalism is very gay that way
- freeopinion 6y agoThis is not a failing of capitalism. It is a failing of regulation. It is the regulation that discourages management from shutting down the harmful action. To escape punishment, they find another job somewhere else and leave the next victim holding the bag. Because of the regulation, not even environmental activists are willing to take over because the axe falls on them. So the idea is appealing, and is as good as any opening of the conversation. But then we see the complications and have to be a little sharper in the iteration of the regulation conversation. And the next iteration has some problems, too. Pretty soon, people complain that we've made it so expensive to close a mine that nobody can afford to open one. And perhaps that's just the truth. Or perhaps we can be clever enough to force the costs lower than the benefits without compromising the future. If we manage that, it will still probably make mining much much less appealing to the robber barons of today. It might make mining or industry or what have you so much less lucrative that the big money players might as well open a hot dog stand for the same margins. That's capitalism.
- lsllc 6y agoThere's the old Indigenous American saying which seems apropos: "When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money."
- ratsmack 6y ago>At a press conference Sunday morning, DeSantis said officials are pumping out 33 million gallons of water a day from the pond, and that the water "is not radioactive," although another official added that the water is "not water we want to see leaving the site." Maybe the title needs to be changed. Edit: >Phosphogypsum is the "radioactive waste" left over from processing phosphate ore into a state that can be used for fertilizer, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. I guess the article has conflicting information.
- drannex 6y agoIf DeSantis says something, it's almost always a fabrication. The states own ecologist and wildlife managers have confirmed it is indeed quite radioactive.
- csense 6y agoIs this waste a radiation hazard, or not? The waste is a byproduct of fertilizer manufacturing and has nothing to do with nuclear power or weapons. For that reason, I doubt it's radioactive. However, the article is contradictory on this point: According to the article, Gov. DeSantis said the water "is not radioactive." Also according to the article, the Center for Biological Diversity says "phosphogypsum is radioactive waste."
- petertodd 6y agoIt's very mildly radioactive due to trace amounts of naturally occurring uranium and thorium (and the daughter isotopes they decay into). Those elements are present because they're in seawater, and the deposits it came from ultimately came from seawater drying. The "phosphogypsum is radioactive waste" claim is hype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum
- xyzzy21 6y agoThe actual "radioactivity" is due to nature uranium and thorium in the original phosphate rock. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum There are NUMEROUS places in the US that have similar or larger NATURAL concentrations of these. Pick any places in the Western US from So Cal to NV to UT to NM back to AZ!! Naturally NO WHERE in the article or any other references do they give actual numbers (e.g. Sv/hour) for the radioactivity. That actually matters a metric shxt-ton for assessing the actual risk. Without that it's nothing more than a boogie that appears after yelling "radiation".
- etc-hosts 6y agoThis giant phosphogypsum stack is not naturally occuring.
- stillbourne 6y agoThere is only one way to fix this problem folks. Privatize the EPA, deregulate wastewater storage, and use the money saved to give the rich a tax cut. The rich will then trickle down into the reservoirs to save us from these problems.
- webinvest 6y agoAdditionally, remove taxes on phosphate and fertilizer sales. Then raise taxes on state education to balance the offset. People will just learn to be happy and blissful. Take it a step further and subsidize these phosphate pools. Pay for the subsidy by selling state bonds. Expect either the next generation of kids to pay all the bond principal and interest or cut state benefits for retired seniors. It will fix itself because Florida’s kids and retirees are more generous than Florida’s old phosphate miners. The kids and seniors will have a higher propensity to solve yesterday’s problems because they’re expected to save a higher percentage of their income compared to previous generations. Obviously, /s.