POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – A 3,200-foot section of road is under construction on private property near Mulberry and could change the future of the phosphate mining industry.
The Mosaic Company is using approximately 1,200 tons of its radioactive mining byproduct, called phosphogypsum, to build the road.
It’s a process that was once banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) but was approved as a pilot program in Dec. 2024 at Mosaic’s New Wales facility.
“The whole idea is OK, great, we can test it in the lab, but does it really work when it’s done under field conditions?” asked Dr. Tim Townsend, a professor of Environmental Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida.
Mosaic is contracting with the University of Florida for the research project.
Mosaic mines phosphate ore to create agricultural fertilizer.
The waste material, phosphogypsum, is stored in stacks.
“The phosphate ore and the resulting phosphogypsum contain radium, which decays to form radon gas. Both radium and radon are radioactive and can cause cancer,” an EPA website reads.
In a letter approving the pilot road project, the EPA said it “poses no greater radiological risk than maintaining the phosphogypsum in a stack.”
The road is split into eight sections.
Four sections have blends of 50% phosphogypsum and either lime rock, crushed concrete, asphalt millings, or a combination of sand and cement.
The other four are considered “controls” with no phosphogypsum.
Those blends make up the “base” of the road and will be covered by asphalt.
“Because it’s gypsum, it has some chemicals in there that we do need to be weary of but we did all this testing in the laboratory and what it shows is – if you build that road correctly, if you follow that 50/50 blend and you pave it then the risk to the ground water underneath should be minimal or none,” said Dr. Townsend.
The pilot program will involve monitoring by Mosaic and UF for economic impacts, including the use of groundwater monitoring wells.
“You have wells that are upgradient that should not be impacted by the road, and then wells that are downgradient. If there was an impact, then potentially you’d be able to see it there,” said Dr. Townsend. “Underneath the base itself, we actually capture any water that makes its way through.”
The monitoring period is approved for 18 months.
“As to whether 18 months is a long enough study, again, I think you have to start somewhere. Right now, we have nothing to base our opinion on whether this is an appropriate use,” said Santino Provenzano, senior director of environmental at Mosaic.
“This is a predestined study designed to reach a specific conclusion,” said Ragan Whitlock, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.
The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the EPA over its approval of the project.
Whitlock argued the project lacks oversight, claiming it’s akin to the “fox guarding the hen house.”
He also criticized the 18-month time period for monitoring.
“The cancer-related properties in radium-226 have a half-life of 1,600 years, yet all monitoring of this project will stop after 18 months,” he said. “There is no way to know whether or not this use will be safe to the public in the long term.”
Dr. Townsend said he expects monitoring to continue longer than 18 months.
Trucks will begin using the road by the end of the year, once it is paved.
“The idea is that we didn’t build this thing so that it was built for an interstate or anything like that. We wanted to be able to see how a typical county roadway might perform,” said Dr. Townsend.
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