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Fertilizer plant potentially causing pollution
Briona Arradondo reports.
MULBERRY, Fla. - Florida environmental regulators are looking into a new report of potential pollution from a fertilizer manufacturing plant in Polk County.
Mosaic informed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on October 20 about an alert from a phosphogypsum stack at its New Wales plant in Mulberry.
"We have on site monitoring equipment that alerted to possible change within pressure within the stack," said Jackie Barron, a public affairs manager at Mosaic. "They sit at different distances and depths and encircle the stack and are very, very sensitive to any sort of seismic activity."
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A Florida DEP inspection report said regulators are looking into a potential liner tear and unknown amount of process water that was lost.
"Any time you have any kind of liner tear, it is a critical condition notice. So, per that requirement, if we believe that could be something that might be a possibility, we report it out to the state, but we do not know yet for sure," said Barron.
Phosphogypsum is waste that’s created as a part of the fertilizer-making process, and it’s stored in large piles called stacks. Those stacks have liners that separate it from the ground. Movement in a stack can be a concern because of potential impacts to the environment.
Mosaic said the stack in question is not active, and there’s no water stored at the top.
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"We will look for cause what caused the change in pressure. It could potentially be a liner tear, but we don't know yet. So that is something that we have to confirm," said Barron.
Environmental advocates are pushing for better oversight. A staff attorney for the center for biological diversity sending us a statement saying, "Liner tears are indicative of structural integrity problems, which can lead to more frequent and devastating events. The catastrophe at Piney Point started with a possible liner tear. Better oversight and regulation of this industry is needed now to avert further environmental damage."
Mosaic said residents should not be worried, and they are monitoring the situation.
"The stack is within the zone of capture for a nearby recovery well, so in the event there is a liner tear, water released will be recovered. We immediately notified the state of the circumstances we encountered, and following that, have already done outreach to the local community and other stakeholders," said Barron.
The New Wales plant is the same place where a sinkhole opened up under a gypsumstack in 2016. Mosaic also investigated a possible liner tear underneath a stack in 2022.
Mosaic said workers will have to do some drilling this week to get a better scope of what’s going on underneath the stack, and they will also compare that with their monitoring data and keep the state updated.