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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nWhen a liner tears, water can mix with the phosphate waste, called phosphogypsum, and seep into groundwater underneath the gypstack. That can cause caverns or sinkholes to open beneath the tear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rainfall and \u201cprocess water\u201d is usually stored in ponds on top of active gypsum stacks. State environment regulators told the Tampa Bay Times there\u2019s no process water above the area of this possible tear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If a tear is confirmed, it\u2019s located in an area where a recovery well could capture and contain any releases and prevent it from polluting water underground. Even with no process water above the phosphogypsum, pollutants could still be released from below, environmental advocates fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, an inspection report from Saturday shows the possible tear was deemed by the company as a \u201ccritical condition\u201d event, which means a written report of the problem \u2014 and the company\u2019s plan to fix it \u2014 needs to be submitted to the state within one week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mosaic intended to begin drilling to investigate this week, according to the inspection report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This development could be the latest environmental issue for the company\u2019s gypstack \u2014 located at the same facility Mosaic and Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 state transportation agency want to use for a controversial test to study roadway construction with phosphogypsum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2016, a sinkhole stretching 152 feet opened beneath the New Wales gypstack and resulted in 215 million gallons of contaminated water draining into the aquifer below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also wouldn\u2019t be the first time the protective liner has torn: Mosaic acknowledged a liner tear and a resulting 300-foot \u201ccavity\u201d at the gypstack as recently as March of last year, according to a letter from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. That confirmation wasn\u2019t made public by the state, or the company, until months after the initial incident report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That liner tear last year was in the eastern section of the gypstack. This potential tear is in the northwestern part, according to state environment regulators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For concerned environmental advocates, this incident is the latest example of gypstack troubles, stemming from the phosphate industry, that threaten human and environmental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a history of failure of liners that Mosaic has had management with,\u201d said Glenn Compton, chairperson of the local environmental advocacy group ManaSota-88. \u201cThis is just another example of one of the legacies that the phosphate industry is leaving behind, one of pollution that we have to be concerned with every time there\u2019s a stack that has a failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s always a concern whenever a protective liner tears in a gypstack, Compton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This February, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection told the Times there were no indications of structural integrity issues at the gypstack. When asked if the agency still believes the same this week, a spokesperson responded that conditions at the site \u201care currently stable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Mosaic spokesperson said the company can\u2019t yet confirm a liner tear and they \u201ccontinue to investigate\u201d the incident. Though the south gypstack is still active, the possible tear is in a part of the stack that is not taking in any more waste byproduct, spokesperson Jackie Barron wrote in an email to the Tampa Bay Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the 2016 sinkhole, Mosaic \u201ccommitted to heightened transparency for notable events.\u201d But a number of subsequent requests from the Times this week for more details about the potential liner tear \u2014 including via phone calls, texts and emails \u2014 have gone unanswered by the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mosaic is required to investigate, a process that includes confirming company data to determine whether a liner tear is the cause of a change in gypstack water pressure. State environmental regulators are at the facility overseeing that investigation, according to Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Alexandra Kuchta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
State environment regulators are also investigating whether there are any violations, a need for penalties or other enforcement, Kuchta told the Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Environmental advocates point to this possible liner tear as a signal that Mosaic\u2019s gypstack has structural issues, and they fear it could lead to more frequent and devastating environmental issues. They say it\u2019s reminiscent of the Piney Point disaster in 2021, when millions of gallons of tainted water were sent into Tampa Bay. That crisis was triggered when a leak in that stack\u2019s liner caused a partial breach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis latest liner tear is emblematic of the significant operational and regulatory failures that have threatened our aquifer and water quality for decades,\u201d said Ragan Whitlock, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit that has litigated against the phosphate industry in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is incumbent upon Mosaic and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to provide the public with a full, timely understanding of what is happening at this stack system,\u201d Whitlock said. \u201cWe should not accept being kept in the dark any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Max Chesnes Tampa Bay Times There\u2019s another possible tear in the liner beneath a pile of Mosaic\u2019s mildly radioactive phosphate waste at its plant in Mulberry, according to a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[6444,6443],"class_list":["post-37746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-fertilizer-company-says","tag-liner-tear-possible-at-mosaics-new-wales-gypstack"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}