They call Florida "the Sunshine State," but next time you visit you should maybe be nervous if the sunshine feels, well, a bit too warm:
A Florida company is giving new meaning to the popular 'reduce, reuse, and recycle.' Specifically, it wants to reuse the byproduct produced during phosphate mining to build roads. There's only one problem: It's radioactive.
Now, generally, if someone gives me the option to drive on a radioactive roadway, my response is pretty quick:
But apparently the EPA felt differently!
Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency approved the request of Mosaic, the largest phosphate producer in the U.S., to carry out a small-scale pilot project using various mixtures of phosphogypsum as a road base. The company plans to create four sections of test road with the phosphogypsum road base at its New Wales facility in Polk County.
Phosphogypsum is what results from the production of phosphorus when it's separated from phosphate rock. Normally federal law would "require phosphogypsum to be stored in engineered piles, known as stacks, to limit the public's exposure to its radioactive components."
However, the EPA has determined that the public's risk in this new project is "low."
I think we're all wondering the same thing: How low are we talking here?
This is not the first time the EPA has considered this material. In 1992 the agency said, "using phosphogypsum to build roads could create risks for the construction workers involved and others who decide to build homes near the roads in the future."
That feels pretty definitive to me! But I guess 33 years will change some opinions here and there.
The state, meanwhile, "passed a law last year that added [phosphogypsum] to the list of approved materials for public road construction," pending further review.
In any event, next time I'm in Florida I'm going to be watching my step very carefully.
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