Wastewater Spill near the Santa Fe Swamp

The Santa Fe River begins with the rainwater-fed lakes Santa Fe and Alto over by Waldo. The river then winds its way north through the Santa Fe Swamp.

These rainwater fed lakes formed on the west side of the Trail Ridge, a towering ancient shoreline that runs down from the Okefenokee Swamp. There are rare minerals in the ridge containing Titanium which have been mined since 1949.

This past week there was a spill from Chemours, a mining company which extracts and processes titanium containing minerals. The spill came from one of their settling ponds which allow waste solids from the mining process to settle to the bottom of the ponds. When a spill occurs, the sediment spills out and this particular spill is positioned to flow into the Santa Fe Swamp.

Below is a copy of the notice released by the Fl-DEP. Titanium is mined by Chemours, formerly DuPont, that has been mining along the Trail Ridge since the late 1950’s. The Trail Ridge area is mined extensively for rare earth minerals. The retention pond occasionally fail, spilling on neighboring land. There was also a spill in September and another one in January of 2024.

The DEP is supposed to provide a follow-up report within five days of discharge.  Please help remind our DEP to assess and inform us about the levels of radium that were discharged. You can contact the FL- DEP to request the sample results from the spillage. You may want to email the inspector Chris.Suarez@floridadep.gov or call the Mining and Mitigation office at 850-245-8336 to ask that the spill analysis be posted. They seem to forget to follow through with this step.

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF Environmental Protection Marjory Stoneman Douglas Building 3900 Commonwealth Boulevard Tallahassee, Florida 32399-3000

Ron DeSantisGovernor Jeanette NuñezLt. Governor Alexis A. LambertSecretary

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Pollution Notice Pursuant to Section 403.077, F.S., the Department of Environmental Protection has received the following Public Notice of Pollution for a reportable release. All information displayed was submitted by the reporting party. Type of Notice: Initial Report Date of Notice: 02/17/2025 Incident Information Name of Incident: Trail Ridge South Process Water Release State Watch Office Case Number: 20251502 Start of Incident: 02/16/2025 06:00 PM End of Incident: 02/16/2025 10:00 PM Incident Description On Sunday, February 16, 2025 at approximately 6 PM, an operator noticed process water overtopping a tailings berm going into an adjacent wetland. Operator immediately stopped the flow by constructing an earthen dam. Environmental was notified at 10:30 PM. We are estimating a volume of 230,000 gallons of water released and are continuing to finalize the volume. Water within the tailing cell, point of entry and downstream locations have been sampled and we will continue to monitor. The sample locations are checked every day per our water quality monitoring program. Incident Location Facility/Installation Name: The Chemours Company FC LLC Address Line 1: 5222 Treat Rd Address Line 2: Directions: Approximately 5 miles east of Starke on SR 230, turn south on Treat Rd and continue about 5 miles south. City: Starke State: FL Zip Code: 32091 Coordinates (in decimal degrees): Lat: 29.891, Long: -82.043 Click to view Incident Location Impacted Counties: Bradford Updated Impact: This Pollution Notice was sent out this week regarding the spill. This is important because spills like these are not unusual and there is a cumulative effect when these spills continue to enter our waterways. Is there anything you can do? Yes, Contact the FL- DEP to request the sample results from the spillage. You may want to email the inspector Chris.Suarez@floridadep.gov or call the Mining and Mitigation office at 850-245-8336 to ask that the spill analysis be posted.

OSFR President Joanne Tremblay
joanne.tremblay@oursantaferiver.org
“Giving Our River A Voice”