The State of Florida traditionally has given the phosphate industry special treatment in spite of its destructive impact on the environment. ManaSota-88, as well as OSFR, has long-opposed the industry.
OSFR was instrumental in thwarting a new mining operation on the upper Santa Fe River.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
ManaSota-88, Inc. a 501.c3 Public Health and Environmental Organization
PHOSPHATE MINING HEALTH IMPACTS
ManaSota-88 renews its request that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin conduct studies to determine the long-term health effect of exposure to toxic and hazardous substances associated with former phosphate mining and processing sites located in Florida.
The Florida Senate recently proposed a bill (SB 832) that would have provided legal protections to companies that mine phosphate and leave behind radioactive soils that could later be built on for residential houses. Although SB 832 did not pass this year, it is likely a similar bill will be introduced in the next legislative session.
If Florida is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from the harmful public health and environmental impacts of phosphate mining, the federal government has the responsibility to do so.
EPA has previously stated that as many as 40,000 people living on former phosphate mining lands in central Florida are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation from contaminated indoor air in central Florida homes.
The phosphate industry has had more than 70 years to address their problem of disposal of phosphate related wastes. Over the last half century, more than 1 billion tons of cancer-causing gypsum wastes have been dumped on Florida. Nearly 30 million tons of waste is annually being produced by the industry. We are no closer to finding a solution to the long-term safe disposal of radioactive phosphogypsum than we were 70 years ago.
The phosphate industries radiation pollution problem has become Florida’s problem.
Accordingly, ManaSota-88 requests that the EPA:
1. Conduct a comprehensive health risk analysis on all Florida phosphate reclaimed mine sites. 14 reclaimed phosphate lands are currently in use by the public as recreational areas throughout the State. Additional testing is needed to determine the extent and source of pollution at these reclaimed mine sites.
2. Conduct inorganic and radiochemical surface water and fish tissue sampling in an on-going monitoring process at all former phosphate sites currently accessible to the public for fishing.
Several endangered or threatened species, as well as anyone consuming fish caught at the former phosphate mines, may be adversely impacted by the contaminated sites.
3. Conduct an ecological risk assessment at the former phosphate mine sites.
Radium-226 and radium-228 have been identified at levels above EPA cancer risk screening concentrations on-site at the Tenoroc Fish Management Area (TFMA).
Land mined for phosphate exhibits higher radioactivity at the surface than it did before mining. Phosphate mining exposes radioactive materials and can increase surface and ground water radiation levels. The elevated levels of radiation identified at TFMA poses a considerable threat to human health and the environment.
4. Conduct measurements for the purpose of determining employee exposure to toxic and hazardous substances, and the potential for long-term health effects of living or working on-site at TFMA and other former phosphate mine sites. EPA should determine if TMFA is in compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Act.
A comprehensive health risk analysis on all Florida phosphate reclaimed mine sites is needed. We are concerned that too little is being done or is being done to slowly to address a serious health problem.
Further delay in responding to the problems of elevated levels of radiation and chemical contamination associated with former phosphate is unacceptable. Such a delay can only be viewed as a deliberate attempt by EPA to circumvent their duties to protect human health and safeguard the environment.
