New Lawsuit Challenges Federal Failure to Regulate Dangerous Phosphate Mining Waste
By: Waterkeeper Alliance
Conservation, public health, and environmental justice organizations, including Waterkeeper Alliance, Bayou City Waterkeeper, and Waterkeepers Florida, have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the federal failure to respond to a petition requesting stronger oversight of toxic and radioactive waste from phosphate mining and fertilizer production.
The lawsuit comes four years after the groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to better protect people and aquatic animals from harmful releases of the toxic wastes into aquifers and waterways.
The groups are asking the agency to revisit its 1991 decision exempting phosphoric acid production wastes from federal hazardous waste regulations so the agency can properly oversee the safe treatment, storage, and disposal of phosphogypsum and process wastewater.
In February 2021, 17 organizations petitioned EPA to better regulate phosphogypsum and process wastewater under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The two radioactive toxic wastes are created during the fertilizer production process, transforming destructively mined phosphate rock into phosphoric acid.
The wastes are currently exempt from hazardous waste regulations to protect the phosphate industry from the cost of compliance. Yet the nation’s largest phosphate manufacturer, the Mosaic Co., reported earnings of $2.2 billion in 2024 alone.
Weak state oversight of these wastes has failed to prevent environmental disasters. The 2021 Piney Point discharge of toxic waste into Tampa Bay fueled a deadly red tide that killed more than 1,600 tons of marine life, including tens of thousands of fish.
“EPA has known for decades that irresponsibly disposing of radioactive and carcinogenic mining waste is a ticking time bomb, but has inexplicably waited four years to respond to our petition for phosphogypsum waste to be listed as hazardous,” said Daniel E. Estrin, general counsel and legal director for Waterkeeper Alliance. “We are left with no choice but to file this lawsuit to enforce EPA’s duty to protect people and wildlife from the next foreseeable disaster.”
Mosaic’s New Wales plant in Mulberry, Florida, has experienced at least four major sinkholes, including one in 2016 that dumped more than 200 million gallons of processed wastewater and an unknown amount of radioactive phosphogypsum into the Floridan aquifer. That toxic plume remains, and the ultimate fate and transport of the waste is unknown, according to an independent study. Most recently, Mosaic’s Riverview plant is likely to have released nearly 40,000 gallons of process wastewater into Tampa Bay following Hurricane Milton last October.
“During a time with such political tension, protecting our public health and protecting our environment is something we all agree on. It’s common sense,” said Justin Tramble, vice chair of Waterkeepers Florida and executive director of Tampa Bay Waterkeeper. “Exempting radioactive phosphogypsum from hazardous waste regulations is the opposite of that common sense. The EPA must fulfil its obligation and duty to protect us from the next phosphogypsum related disaster. That is literally their job.”
Beyond Florida, Mosaic’s Uncle Sam Plant in St. James Parish, Louisiana, is poised to expand despite structural integrity concerns, and J.R. Simplot’s Don Plant in Pocatello, Idaho, continues to contribute pollution to a designated Superfund site.
Radium-226, found in phosphogypsum, has a 1,600-year radioactive decay half-life. In addition to high concentrations of radioactive materials, phosphogypsum and process wastewater can also contain carcinogens and heavy toxic metals like antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, sulfur, thallium, and zinc.
“Major spills of this highly acidic waste happened in 1999 and 2007, shutting down the Houston Ship Channel,” said Kristen Schlemmer, senior legal director and waterkeeper of Bayou City Waterkeeper. “Each spill was a missed opportunity for the EPA to act and avoid another disaster, like what we’ve watched unfold with Piney Point in Florida. With our lawsuit, we’re telling the EPA that we need regulation that reflects the serious impacts phosphogypsum has had on communities and ecosystems in Houston and across the United States.”
The conservation groups are represented by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University College of Law.
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“The phosphate industry’s failure to protect people and the environment from its toxic waste should spur Trump officials to eliminate the industry’s exemption from federal oversight,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our regulators should prioritize the environment over corporate greed, and that’s exactly what we’re seeking.”
“Once again, we’re relying on the EPA to establish stringent regulations and demand improved technologies for waste management,” said Sharon Lavigne, founder and director of RISE St. James. “Here in Cancer Alley, we’ve experienced firsthand the challenges of residing near Mosaic. Phosphate mining waste has the potential to completely degrade the natural environment — the land, the air, the water and the soil. The radiation hazards aren’t just a concern for the workers; they also affect neighboring communities. We deserve so much better.”
“It is time for EPA to recognize that phosphogypsum waste is harmful to the country’s waterways, communities and environment,” said Matt Rota, Healthy Gulf’s senior policy director. “This toxic, radioactive waste must be disposed of properly and no longer be exempted from the laws that govern other similar harmful waste.”
“Phosphogypsum waste sits stacked in Florida and around the United States without any solution for its ultimate fate,” said Brooks Armstrong, president of People for Protecting Peace River. “Piled 300 feet or more, these huge stacks have had multiple failures, releasing their highly toxic and radioactive liquids into our Floridan aquifer. People for Protecting Peace River live in areas where this mining waste originates, the strip mines of Bone Valley, and we see the end waste causing harm to us and our neighbors.”
“As public awareness of the negative impact of the phosphate industry on the environment increases, the need to eliminate toxic emissions to the environment will become more evident,” said Glenn Compton, chairman of Manasota-88. “Contaminated water and dissolved material containing toxins has the potential to seep from gypsum stacks, slime ponds and ditches into underlying aquifers at both phosphate chemical plants and phosphate mines. Damage from the phosphate industry is not limited to Florida and other states mining and processing phosphate. Fertilizers and phosphates are a major culprit in water pollution nationwide.”
