Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in the state on April 3 because a leaking wastewater pond near the Tampa Bay area threatened the surrounding area. The wastewater contains the naturally occurring radioactive substances radium (Ra) and uranium (U).
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection said a crack was found Friday in a wall of a 77-acre pond that is 25 feet deep and contains millions of gallons of water containing phosphorus and nitrogen from an old phosphate plant.
Officials used gravel and materials to fill the crack, but were unsuccessful.
Florida officials on Saturday asked residents of more than 300 homes around the pond to evacuate urgently because of the “imminent” collapse of the pond, while closing highways near the large reservoir in the Tampa Bay area north of Bradenton.
The most pressing concern is that the wastewater could flood the area, despite its low population density, Manatee County Executive Scott Hopes said at a news conference Saturday.
“We’re talking about 600 million gallons of water leaving the wastewater pond and flowing into the surrounding area within seconds and minutes,” he said. “The collapse could also threaten other ponds at the site.”
Local workers are currently pumping out thousands of gallons of water per minute to reduce the pond’s storage capacity, and it would take 10 to 12 days to drain the entire pond. Others are working to map a path to have control over how the water flows from the pond to Tampa Bay.
The wastewater pond is said to be made up of three separated ponds, one of which holds what could be described as salt water. This pond also contained ducks and snook (Snook) on Friday, but the other 2 ponds were a different story, officials said.
The water in the other two ponds contains phosphogypsum, a mineral byproduct, which contains traces of the naturally occurring radioactive elements radium and uranium. The owner of the ponds is HRK Holdings, which still owns and maintains the Piney Point phosphate plant, which closed in 2001.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, phosphogypsum is radioactive waste left over from the phosphate mining process and is a byproduct of the production of fertilizer. The waste from the fertilizer production process is stored in large or iterative piles. Since 2015, the U.S. has been the third-largest producer of phosphate ore, the phosphate-rich rock used to produce fertilizer.
Governor DeSantis declared a state of emergency in Florida on Saturday, allocating more resources to respond to the crisis.
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