The Mosaic Sinkhole: Why Florida's water may be radioactive

Phosphorous, forever the dichotomous element. 

An integral compound in the functions of life, fuelling us in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) while the tensile strength of the phospholipid bilayer holds our very cell membranes together.

Simultaneously, it can just as easily be an agent of death. In its elemental form "white" phosphorous is highly toxic, and used in incendiary devices and bombs designed to poison and kill. "Red" phosphorous is also responsible for the death of many a backwoods chemist, playing a chief role in the reduction of iodine to hydroiotic acid, which is used to further reduce pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine. 

Phosphorous, and its myriad properties is the main character of our story today. The setting: bone valley, Florida. Its skyline riddled with the spires of chemical refineries, and the land overturned to expose the twenty million year old trove of phosphorite rock.

              

                   

Mosaic, the multi billion dollar phosphate giant that owns almost every refinery throughout Florida, brushed a detrimental error under the rug when a massive sinkhole opened up underneath a gypsum stack, releasing 215 million gallons of radioactive water deep into the bowels of Florida's aquifer.

I want to elucidate how this happened, how Mosaic was able to get away with it, and what this could imply.

twenty five million years ago, central Florida was enveloped in a prehistoric ocean where life propagated in cool silence. Upon decession, the skeletons fossilized and formed a layer of apatite (phosphorite rock). Geochemically, apatite can house significant amounts of Uranium. Refinement involves the old fossils being crushed and cast into a slurry of sulfuric acid and water the uranium concentrates, and through a chemical reaction produces a radioactive calcified waste product known as phosphogypsum. These accumulate into vast, pale hills across the raped earth housing the radioactive aqueous phase of the extraction.

On a September morning in 2016 the water level of one of these started diminishing rapidly. The facility came to the harrowing realization that a sink hole had opened up underneath this pool of waste. The hole cascaded down about 700 feet into the chambers of rock known as the "aquifer" or a mass of porous rock that aqueous matter flows freely through. Aquifers are frequently drawn from for fresh water supplies. Despite the principles of diffusion, it is none the less unsettling to hear that a quarter billion gallons of radioactive slurry was dumped into water that could be one day imbibed (it's also notable that the Zephyrhills water facility lies only ten miles from the Mosaic New Wales plant).

And even more unsettling is the fact that Mosaic was able to skirt fines for this by claiming that no clean up was necessary because the sink hole opened up on private property. 

       

This is purely speculation, but in the chemical process of refining apatite uranium can be easily recovered from the final product. Such a phosphate giant as Mosaic would benefit greatly from a government contract to sell their uranyl by product. It would also explain the lack of sanctions placed against them. 

This speculation is heavily supported by stories I've heard from various central Floridians I've encountered. One from a young man who was riding an ATV on what he thought was public property only to be greeted by a squad of blacked out lifted trucks with AR-15's mounted inside telling him that he was on Mosaic property and they had "shoot to kill" laws on all of their land. In disbelief, he returned later that evening only to find a row of six or seven of the same trucks waiting on the hill, their drivers standing beside them with arms in hand. 

My aim is to spread awareness for this happening and cement the fact into the general public that basic scientific principles must be known and respected. Humans are the fleeting cilia against the tough membranous Earth. There are forces, such as radioactive contamination, that we have little power over. 

Whatever the ultimate truth to this story is, almost a year after the incident the hole is still unfilled and the void stares up at us as we try to decipher it.

Sources: 

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/gov-rick-scott-tours-mosaic-sinkhole-company-says-hole-is-bigger-deeper/2295417

https://www.dep.state.fl.us/swapp/Aquifer.asp

John J. Mortvedt and James D. Beaton, Heavy Metal And Radionuclide Contaminants In Phosphate Fertilizers.