Posted on 12/27/2024 10:53:05 AM PST by Red Badger
They call Florida "the Sunshine State," but next time you visit you should maybe be nervous if the sunshine feels, well, a bit too warm:
A Florida company is giving new meaning to the popular 'reduce, reuse, and recycle.' Specifically, it wants to reuse the byproduct produced during phosphate mining to build roads. There's only one problem: It's radioactive.
Now, generally, if someone gives me the option to drive on a radioactive roadway, my response is pretty quick:
PASS.........
But apparently the EPA felt differently! Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection Agency approved the request of Mosaic, the largest phosphate producer in the U.S., to carry out a small-scale pilot project using various mixtures of phosphogypsum as a road base. The company plans to create four sections of test road with the phosphogypsum road base at its New Wales facility in Polk County.
Phosphogypsum is what results from the production of phosphorus when it's separated from phosphate rock. Normally federal law would "require phosphogypsum to be stored in engineered piles, known as stacks, to limit the public's exposure to its radioactive components."
However, the EPA has determined that the public's risk in this new project is "low."
I think we're all wondering the same thing: How low are we talking here?
This is not the first time the EPA has considered this material. In 1992 the agency said, "using phosphogypsum to build roads could create risks for the construction workers involved and others who decide to build homes near the roads in the future."
That feels pretty definitive to me! But I guess 33 years will change some opinions here and there.
The state, meanwhile, "passed a law last year that added [phosphogypsum] to the list of approved materials for public road construction," pending further review.
In any event, next time I'm in Florida I'm going to be watching my step very carefully.
I think the aussies were doing that with the road striping.
See! Everything in Australia will kill you!.............Even the roads!...............
I suppose it depends just how radioactive it really is. Nuclear weapons grade or radon barely detectable radioactive? I suspect it’s the latter, and the EPA is over-reacting, as usual.
High in potassium material. A tiny portion of elemental potassium or potassium compounds have natural radiation. About as dangerous as driving the produce truck.
As a child, I observed contaminated liquid from oil well saltwater pits being sprayed on tar and gravel roads.
Cancer is rampant in the area where I lived, and the water table is polluted too. Supposedly lining the pit would prevent leakage.
My lunch was radioactive. It had bananas.
Bananas have always been radioactive. On the low end of radioactivity however.
Well my doc says that I’m chronically low in potassium, so now all I have to do is go out and lick the highway every now and then................
The average American probably gets more annual radiation than that from granite countertops and bananas.
excuse me Officer, I wasn’t speeding, I was reducing my exposure time… 🤣🤣🤣
Granite and quartzite used in commercial and residential construction, including kitchen and bathroom countertops, are also naturally radioactive.
https://healthybuildingscience.com/2012/04/27/radioactive-granite-and-quartzite-risks-from-radon/
If you live on land above granite deposits, your ground is radioactive.
The real issue is how radioactive.
The key question in the posted report remains unanswered (so far as I could see): how radioactive?
And I’d prefer my answer in BED’s (banana equivalent doses): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_equivalent_dose
Yep.
Typical. There is absolutely no indication what radioactivity levels would be encountered.
There can be absolutely no risk assessment of any kind unless we are told what the isotope is. Some digging told me it is likely Ra-226 in the Phosphogypsum (from naturally occurring isotopes in the Uranium chain) and Radon is only a real problem in enclosed spaces with little air flow where it is possible Radon concentrations can build up over time.
Without knowing what the heck specifically they are referring to, I would classify this as EPA BS.
Actually, it does look like the EPA said it was okay. Which is surprising. But if they built it in California, they might mandate Proposition 65 road signs every mile saying “WARNING: Driving on this road may cause cancer.”
California should just go with this Prop 65 warning on everything.
“Everything in California causes cancer”
If you have land in certain areas of South Park, Colorado, you must get a radiation survey before building a house on it. The "natural background radiation" in those areas is at a level considered hazardous.
Did the dinosaurs fight a war with atomic weapons in the ancient lands that became Colorado?
LOL, or an STD
What isn't?
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