Mosaic, the new Cargill phosphate entity has been lightly slapped on the wrist for a huge toxic spill that was mostly lost amid the roar of many hurricanes last year.
The owner of a Riverview phosphate factory has been fined $270,000 over a dike that broke during Hurricane Frances, dumping millions of gallons of acidic wastewater into a nearby creek.
An investigation by state environmental regulators determined that the breach allowed 65-million gallons of waste from a phosphate processing plant to flow into Archie Creek, which leads to Hillsborough Bay.
The spill posed no threat to humans but killed fish and other sea life and may have damaged fragile mangroves and sea grass beds. A federal-state investigation is continuing and could lead to more penalties.
The fine, announced Friday by the state Department of Environmental Protection, covers only the factory’s violations of state water quality standards by allowing the waste to flow unchecked into the creek. The waste, which is both slightly acidic and radioactive, violated standards for arsenic, heavy metals and a variety of other pollutants.
The DEP can levy fines of as much as $10,000 per day for each violation, agency spokeswoman Cragin Mosteller said.
DEP levied the fine against Mosaic, the largest phosphate producer in the world, with annual revenues of $4.5-billion.
Mosaic was formed last year when Cargill Crop Nutrition, which owned the Riverview plant, merged with industry giant IMC-Global.
Because the spill happened during a raging hurricane, we’ll never know the true extent of the damage, but Cargill was definitely not being a good neighbor at the time.
Twice warned by state regulators that a thin dike wall and higher than usual water levels could lead to disaster, Cargill failed to fix problems with it’s waste reservoir in a timely manner, resulting in the discharge of 70 million gallons of radioactive sludge mixed with highly acidic water into environmentally sensitive Tampa Bay.
Then, once it became apparent that a spill was imminent, or even in progress, Cargill ignored local lines of communication which may have allowed for quick containment help and called the industry friendly state DEP instead. Local authorities found out about the spill from a DEP press conference in Talahassee – these guys failed to notify even their closest neighbors that they were in the process of spilling and killing,
Once word of the spill, er, leaked out, Cargill downplayed its significance, maintaining that this was a manageable event, that Cargill was treating the overflow to prevent damage, and that there was nothing to worry about.
Since this weekend’s spill, we’ve had rain every day, and Ivan is quite possibly coming to dump even more water in our area. Now, Cargill says that it will have to “relocate” another 90 million gallons of waste water to prevent another catastrophic spill. Cargill is in the process of drawing down the reservoir, transferring some water to another stack, and releasing ever more water into the containment berm around the faulty reservoir.
Once in the berm, it will be treated with lime to make it somewhat less toxic. Well, that’s the official spin, but this treatment will simply raise the pH level to make the discharge a little less acidic. It will do nothing to clean nasty contaminants like arsenic and mercury and radiation. Then, after “treatment”, the toxic stew in the berm will be released into Archie creek and flow directly into Tampa Bay.
As well as carcinogenic heavy metals, the mixture of water and radioactive waste and lime contains tons of phosphorus and nitrogen – the raw materials of fertilizer – which, when released into a body of water, feeds algae growth, which lowers oxygen levels, which kills fish and leads to dead zones.
More Cargill coverage from BlogWood.
