HomeMy WebLinkAboutDocumentation_Environmental Advisory Committee_Tab 07_2/10/2021Agenda Item N.
d. Urge all municipalities in Palm Beach County, Palm Beach County, Mai -tin County
and FDOT to take similar actions in an expedited manner to protect the health,
safety and welfare of the citizens.
2
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11/4/2020 EPA approves using radioactive fertilizer waste as road material
Agenda Item #6.
The Palm Beach Post
COLUMNS
Cerabino: Trump EPA puts Florida on
radioactive road to ruin
Frank Cerabino Palm Beach Post
Published 3:36 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2020 1 Updated 4:13 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2020
You probably don't spend much time thinking about phosphogypsum. Florida produces
mountains of it.
It's the waste product of phosphate rock mining, an American industry that mostly operates
in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee.
The process that turns phosphate rock to fertilizer involves dissolving the rock in an acid
solution that produces a radioactive slushy waste called phosphogypsum.
The process takes the naturally occurring uranium, thorium and radium and puts it in a
concentrated form more radioactive than its original state. Along the way, it also releases
radon gas, which is classified as a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act,
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wear one
The Environmental Protection Agency has adopted regulations to protect the public from this
high -volume radioactive waste product. In Florida, phosphogypsum is stored in remote,
mountainous piles called "stacks."
These stacks rise Up to 200 feet and span hundreds of acres, each with a lake of
contaminated, radioactive water on top. There are 25 of them in Florida, with a combined
output of more than 1 billion pounds of phosphogypsum,
"Phosphogypsum stacks are located on private property away from people," the EPA website
says. "Unless you are visiting a facility, you will not encounter a phosphogypsum stack. If you
are visiting a facility, always follow posted safety messages,,"
To protect the public, the EPA has banned nearly all uses of these radioactive piles of waste
material. And so they sit there as a disposal issue for the fertilizer industry and an unseen
Palqg4l..of 45
https://www.palmbeachpost-com/story/news/coIumns/2020/10/26/floridas-radioactive-phosphogympsum-piles-cleared-by-epa-for-use-as-road-buiIding-mater " 042. 1 / 3)
11/4/2020 EPA approves using radioactive fertilizer waste as road material
Agenda Item #6.
hazard to the public.
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year
The last time phosphogypsum stacks were in the news was three years ago, when a giant
sinkhole opened up under one in Mulberry, in Central Florida.
IV
But they're in the news again, because under the Trump administration, the T" in EPA
stands for "Plundering and the current EPA chairman, Andrew Wheeler, a former coal
company lobbyist, has, loosened the restrictions on using this radioactive waste.
This month, Wheeler announced that based on a study by The Fertilizer Institute, the EPA
would allow the radioactive waste in phosphogypsum to be used as a material in road
construction.
That's right. The same waste which since 1989 has been meticulously kept away from the
public because of its inherent health risks, is now going to be used in the most public way
possible, as a road -building material.
And it's not because the EPA scientists recommended it. In fact, EPA scientists looked at
using phosphogypsum that way years ago and rejected it as unsafe.
Wheeler's justification for allowing it is because of a study done last year by The Fertilizer
Institute.
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voicemails
So, for those keeping score at home: The polluting industry does a study saying that its
radioactive waste product ought to be shared more with the public, and you, the public
servant who got your job after representing one of the most heavily fined coal companies in
America, think that's a great idea.
"Allowing the reuse of phosphogypsum shows EPA's commitment to working with industry in
a way that both reduces environmental waste and protects public health," Wheeler said in an
EPA news release.
Wheeler went on to say that this "demonstrates President Trump's commitment to 'win -win!
environmental solutions."
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11/4/2020 EPA approves using radioactive fertilizer waste as road material
Agenda Item #6.
1"m not sure how much of a "win" this is for us. When the EPA explained its approval in the
Federal Register, the projected benefits to public health aren't enumerated.
It just says that the only standard it has to meet is that "the proposed use is at least as
protective of human health as placement in a stack."
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Call me cynical, but if somebody was going to reassure me that using radioactive waste
materials to build roads wasn't going to increase my "lifetime risk to fatal cancer," I would
prefer the source of this research to be more medically authoritative than The Fertilizer
Institute, an economic stakeholder in the waste removal.
Yielding to The Fertilizer Institute's judgment on this issue is like deciding to ban home
security systems based on a recommendation from the Home Burglars of America.
This is particularly bad news for Floridians, because The Fertilizer Institute declared that it is
economically infeasible for the industry to truck this radioactive waste more than 20,Omiles
from the stacks.
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him
Considering that most of Florida's stacks are centrally located on the Peninsula, that means
most of the trucked phosphogypsum will stay here in the state to fulfill the industry's
radioactive road -filler plan.
Perhaps Florida's tourism effort will one day be able to focus on the virtues of our new and
improved radioactive roadways.
I'm working on a pitch.
Florida: Come for sunshine, stay for the road -related nausea and vomiting, bone marrow
damage, depletion of white blood cells and internal bleeding.
fcerabino@gannett.com
7-77
@FranklyFlorida
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Agenda Item V.
Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC)
STAFF MEMO '
S
4
Meeting: Environmental Advisory Committee (EAC) -Feb 10 2021
Staff Contact: Robert Shaw Department: Environmental Advisory
Committee
Discussion on Use of the Video "Where Have All the Songbirds Gone."
Backup Response to Where Have All the Songbirds Gone 021021
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Agenda Item V.
Memo
To: Environmental Advisory Committee Members
From: Thomas G. Bradford, Chair, EAC rR
cc: NA
Date: February 3, 2021
Re: Discussion on Use and Distribution of Palm Beach Video "Where Have All the
Songbirds Gone"
Robert Shaw, Vice -Chair, EAC, has suggested that we have a discussion on the proper distribution
of the video "Where Have All the Songbirds Gone." To answer the question in the title, one
suspected culprit is overuse of pesticides.
The seminar in the video hosted by the Town of Palm Beach was very popular, standing room
only. Perhaps its time to plan for our own seminar with subject matter experts now that there may
be light at the end of the tunnel in regard to COVID - 19?
The link to the video is below.-
htt-ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqIXFlhvfSs&feature=youtu.be
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