Results are in from first round of Mosaic water testing

MULBERRY (FOX 13) - The first round of radioactivity well water test results stemming from the Mosaic sinkhole came back Wednesday and, while the news was good, neighbors weren't convinced they're totally out of the woods.

According to Environmental Consulting and Technology, a private company hired by Mosaic to test private well water, there were only trace amounts of Uranium, which is normal in Florida.

"Those results indicate that for these nine wells, all nine of the wells meet EPA drinking water standards," said Gary Uebelhoer, a Vice President for ECT. "The land and the limestone beneath us naturally contains Uranium at some level, literally from Pinellas County to Orange County."

The 45-foot-wide sinkhole, which measures more than 700 feet deep, opened at Mosaic's phosphate plant in Mulberry a little more than a month ago. Hundreds of millions of gallons of contaminated water has poured into the Floridan Aquifer. The Department of Environmental Protection was quickly notified, but the community didn't find out few weeks.

The company maintains no contaminated water left the property and well water has always been safe.

Neighbors, however, aren't yet feeling completely safe.

"I'm not drinking the water not for a while or even cooking with it," said Joyce Hunter, who lives a couple miles away. "I'll accept the report as of today but I'm not happy until we have more testing, maybe once a month."

A spokesperson for Mosaic said the company is currently focused on continuing the initial tests and has not made any decisions about re-testing in the future.

So far, more than 600 homeowners have requested private well water tests.