After years of talking big about improving the environment and public health, the Biden administration has apparently decided to end things on the radioactivity issue.
On Monday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved A request was received from Mosaic Fertilizer LLC, a leading manufacturer of phosphate fertilizers based in Tampa, to use phosphogypsum on a road construction project on private land in New Wales, Florida.
Phosphogypsum is a waste product produced by the phosphate industry when processing phosphate rock into phosphoric acid used in fertilizers. This byproduct contains radium, which decays to form radon, a colorless radioactive gas that is linked to approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year, the report said. EPA estimates. Under the Clean Air Act, phosphogypsum must be disposed of in artificial piles called stacks to limit public exposure.
2022 paper published in peer-reviewed journal Heliyon noticed Phosphogypsum “builds up in the open and causes significant damage to soil, water systems, the air, and other environments. Exhaled radon-222 and harmful gases, including phosphorus, cadmium, and radium-226, release air pollutants. , which may have negative effects such as spreading pollutants into nearby areas. ”
The radioactive decay half-life of radon-226 in phosphogypsum is 1,600 years.
2017 paper published in the International Journal of Environmental Studies shown World production of phosphogypsum exceeds 220 million tons per year. According to Florida's 24 stacks contain about 1 billion tons of phosphogypsum, and 30 million tons of new phosphogypsum is produced each year, according to the Florida Institute of Industry and Phosphate Research at the Florida Institute of Technology.
As the stockpiled amount of this waste increases, for decades We are asking people to consider recycling phosphogypsum rather than dumping it into the ocean or storing it in mines. Proposals to add waste to road foundation filler, modified asphalt concrete, have been met with fierce opposition.
various conservation organizations petitioned In early 2021, EPA requested that a 1991 regulatory decision to exclude radioactive waste from hazardous waste regulations under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act be reversed. “Initiating a fast-track process to designate phosphogypsum and process wastewater as high-priority substances for risk assessment under the Toxic Substances Control Act.” and consider whether use of the material in road construction qualifies as a significant new use.
“The majority of comments were generally opposed to the use of phosphogypsum on public roads.”
The Trump EPA passed a rule in 2020 approving a request from the Fertilizer Association to use the material on government road construction projects, but the Biden EPA withdrew approval Several months after receiving the petition in February.
Mosaic Fertilizer filed a request in March 2022 for a “Small Road Pilot Project on Private Land in Florida” and then filed an amended request last year to build a 300-foot-long, 24-foot-wide radioactive waste The construction of four sections of the property road was proposed. , near an existing phosphogypsum stack in New Wales.
In October, the EPA awarded the project pending approval. pay attention The review said it “found Mosaic's demands” [was] The requirements of EPA's National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and the potential radiological risks from conducting the pilot project, are at least as high for the public as the project would be for maintaining phosphogypsum. Meeting regulatory requirements to protect hygiene. stack. ”
Joseph Goffman, EPA Assistant Secretary; notified Mosaic Fertilizer reported in a Dec. 20 letter that the project had been formally approved after an extended public comment period, and that the risk assessment was “technically acceptable” and that the risks raised during the comment period It said the comments “did not contain any new information that could cause problems.” Questions have been raised about the technical basis of the pilot project's risk assessment. ”
agency noticed “The majority of comments generally oppose the use of phosphogypsum on public roads and criticize the current state of phosphogypsum management,” the Federal Register said Monday.
The entry further states:
Commenters were critical of many aspects of the risk assessment. Commenters will perform radiation risk assessment, use of fatal radiation-induced cancers as health endpoints, dose and risk factor selection, model selection, exposure scenario selection, and whether current risk data were used. questioned the overall competence of the EPA. Specifically, several commenters believed that more emphasis should be placed on consideration for future residents of pilot project sites. These comments represent a divergence from decisions made by EPA in assessing the potential risks associated with the proposed pilot project.
The EPA ultimately made approval conditional on the company informing all employees involved in the project that “phosphogypsum contains high levels of naturally occurring radionuclides.”
Ragan Whitlock, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, which opposes the project, said in a statement. obtained The Tampa Bay Times said, “The public health and environmental damage caused by this type of waste leaking from radioactive phosphogypsum caches is well-documented and should lead to increased scrutiny of Florida's biggest polluter.'' ” he said.
“Instead, EPA bowed to political pressure from the phosphate industry and cleared the way for this hazardous waste to be used on roadways across the country,” Whitlock continued. “We will do everything in our power to protect the people of Florida and our precious environment from this reckless plan.”
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