Mosaic Phosphate Co. is Florida’s second-largest landowner, with some 380,000 acres, much of which is devoted to the storage of the hazardous waste products generated by the phosphate industry. In their search to find new and different methods to dispose of this waste, Mosaic has received permission to conduct testing of two new disposal methodologies, both of which may prove to be dangerous to people and animals. On February 26, MidPoint hosted two lawyers challenging  Mosaic’s plans.

Radioactive Roads

Ragan Whitlock is a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity. On behalf of the Center,  he has filed a a petition at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to fight Mosaic’s plan test the use of phosphogypsum, a radioactive byproduct of the phosphate industry, in a Florida road project. The Center is seeking review of a December 2024 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to allow Mosaic to move forward with the pilot road project on company property at their New Wales facility in Polk County. Environmental groups have long argued that using phosphogypsum in such projects could pose risks to people working on roads and to our water quality as the product makes its way into the ground.

What’s in the Water?

Rachael Curran  is a staff attorney at the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson Law School. She represents a coalition of non-profit clients fighting the harms to communities and wildlife wrought by the phosphate fertilizer industry. Her current focus is on Mosaic’s plan to test disposing of hazardous wastewater from phosphate processing by injecting it underground. State environmental regulators have signaled they intend to approve a permit to allow Mosaic to drill 8,000 feet into the earth at the company’s Plant City facility which the company said it would use to test the feasibility of injecting wastewater at several other sites in Hillsborough and Polk Counties. Mosaic is applying for permits to dig exploratory wells at both its New Wales and Bartow facilities, while Mosaic wants to skip the underground exploration permit altogether at the company’s Riverview plant, which borders the eastern shores of the Tampa Bay estuary. The company claims that the underground geology at the Riverview site is well known, and “therefore testing isn’t needed” because a controversial deep injection well was approved there after the 2021 Piney Point disaster.

Environmental advocates believe the only reason Mosaic has to consider sending its wastewater underground is because it’s not clean enough to return to waters like Tampa Bay. They fear that if injection wells are permitted, the company will have no financial incentive to clean up the wastewater, and they maintain that the risk of leaks of hazardous material from these wells into the Florida aquifer and Florida’s drinking water is too great.

Public Hearing

The public can ask questions, give feedback, and learn more about the draft permit for the underground well at Mosaic’s Plant City inactive phosphate manufacturing facility in Hillsborough County on March 11, 2025 from 4 pm to 7pm at the Sadye Gibbs Martin Community Center, 1601 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Plant City.

You can  hear this entire episode here, or on the WMNF app, or as a WMNF MidPoint podcast from Spotify or Apple Music