Mosaic wants to inject phosphate wastewater underground at Florida sites

[Zorro]

A Tampa-based Fortune 500 fertilizer giant is eyeing a place to put its industrial wastewater: thousands of feet underground.

Over the past year The Mosaic Co., which operates mines across Florida’s phosphate-rich Bone Valley region, has applied to either test or begin injecting its phosphate wastewater far beneath the earth’s surface at four of its facilities, including two in Hillsborough County.

The sweeping push for underground injection is the latest attempt from the $8 billion mining company to find new ways of managing its waste in Florida. In December, the federal government approved Mosaic’s controversial request to test phosphogypsum, a mildly radioactive byproduct of the company’s fertilizer, as an ingredient in road construction.

Now, 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, according to public records. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection in November issued conditional approval for the exploratory well there, which the company said it would use to test the feasibility of injecting wastewater.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/2025/02/18/mosaic-phosphate-wastewater-drilling-hillsborough-tampa-bay-florida/

Well this certainly sounds like a great idea...what could go wrong?

[Wonder Why]

1. I remember those 50s movies about radiation and their effect on various other creatures. We are

doomed to be fighting giant ants and monsters of all sorts long after the nuts are gone - given, of course, that humans survive the next four years.