Florida lawmakers have passed a bill that would allow construction workers to pave new roads with a radioactive material called phosphogypsum.
These changes are part of bill HB1191.
Environmentalists said phosphogypsum is a hazardous material that develops when phosphate is mined. When fertilizer is made, phosphogypsum is a material that is left over.
Matt DePaolis is the environmental policy director for The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. He said, “Right now, the way that we deal with this is by stacking phosphogypsum into these giant stacks that are called, and that’s just a way of storing phosphogypsum because it is dangerous to people around it.”
Paving roads using phosphogypsum has been banned continuously by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 1992.
According to the EPA, paving roads with phosphogypsum is a high cancer risk to construction workers, who are the frontline people handling the material. Paving roads with phosphogypsum could also leak chemicals into groundwater when it rains. Vehicular traffic could also cause radionuclides to be suspended back into the air.
Environmentalists say the bill would be bad for Southwest Florida.
Ragan Whitlock is a staff attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. He said, “When Hurricane Ian ravaged the southwest coast of Florida last year. The Sanibel
Causeway collapsed into the sea. If these roads were paved with radioactive, toxic materials, that would leak back into our waterways and bays and further contaminate our fragile ecosystems.”
Whitlock said, “There is no benefit to the state of Florida, to our environment from use of this stuff and road construction projects. The phosphate industry would love to find another cash stream, another revenue stream for the toxic waste that it creates on a yearly basis.“
The bill is heading to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk. Once it hits his desk, he has 14 days to sign or veto it.
DePaolis said this would “allow pilot projects to move forward that are testing the feasibility of using phosphogypsum as a substrate material in our roads.”
If DeSantis signs it, the bill says the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) would be required to conduct a study to evaluate the sustainability of phosphogypsum. FDOT would have a deadline of April 1, 2024, to complete this.
The EPA would also have to agree with them since paving roads with this radioactive material is currently prohibited by the EPA.
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