‘No community should suffer this’: Florida’s toxic breach was decades in the making

[JacksinPA]

‘No community should suffer this’: Florida’s toxic breach was decades in the making

A leak at an abandoned fertilizer plant is just the latest development at a site that has polluted the area since it was built

www.theguardian.com

It’s been a week since a significant leak at a long-abandoned fertilizer plant in the Tampa Bay area threatened the surrounding groundwater, soil, and local water supplies.

Last weekend, officials ordered more than 300 families living near the 676-acre Piney Point plant site in Manatee county to evacuate. The sheriff even emptied out his jail’s first floor of inmates in case a “20-foot wall of water” came rolling their way.

By Monday, local officials said they thought the crisis had been averted; they lifted evacuation orders on Tuesday afternoon. But what they meant was that imminent catastrophe had been postponed. The long-term, slow-moving crisis of toxicity, decades in the making, remains – and is echoed at dozens of radioactive ponds across the state.
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This is another case of radioactive waste generated during phosphate mining, one of FL's biggest industries.

 

[SMTA]

Florida deserves this boondoggle.
They sat on their hands for 20 years.

 

[JacksinPA]

Florida deserves this boondoggle.
They sat on their hands for 20 years.

Phosphate mining in FL has been big business. That means politicians get their greedy hands into it.

 

[ecofarm]

After we clean up the radioactive ponds, could we work on the pig shit ponds that cause Red Tide?

 

[JacksinPA]

After we clean up the radioactive ponds, could we work on the pig shit ponds that cause Red Tide?

Red Tides are not for fooling around. I got shellfish poisoning from a boiled lobster. Never been that sick before or since. Even bacterial pneumonia was pleasant by comparison.

Lobsters are bottom feeders so you can never tell what they might have had for lunch. A dinoflagellate that causes Red Tide carries a bunch of nasty toxins.

 

[ecofarm]

Red Tides are not for fooling around. I got shellfish poisoning from a boiled lobster. Never been that sick before or since. Even bacterial pneumonia was pleasant by comparison.

Lobsters are bottom feeders so you can never tell what they might have had for lunch. A dinoflagellate that causes Red Tide carries a bunch of nasty toxins.

Red Tide is caused by pig shit ponds, which are not being cleaned up any more than the radioactive ponds.

 

[Loulit01]

Red Tides are not for fooling around. I got shellfish poisoning from a boiled lobster. Never been that sick before or since. Even bacterial pneumonia was pleasant by comparison.

Lobsters are bottom feeders so you can never tell what they might have had for lunch. A dinoflagellate that causes Red Tide carries a bunch of nasty toxins.

Don't worry. The huge rise in sea level expected from Climate Change will dilute the oceans enough to lessen the effects of Red Tides. All we have to do is elect more republicans who will carry on Trump's unprecedented repeals of EPA regulations, deny humans contribute to rising global temperatures, promote coal and oil while mocking renewable energy sources, and pretend not to believe the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere.

Everything will be just fine.

 

[JacksinPA]

Don't worry. The huge rise in sea level expected from Climate Change will dilute the oceans enough to lessen the effects of Red Tides. All we have to do is elect more republicans who will carry on Trump's unprecedented repeals of EPA regulations, deny humans contribute to rising global temperatures, promote coal and oil while mocking renewable energy sources, and pretend not to believe the effects of CO2 on the atmosphere.

Everything will be just fine.

While it relates to earthquakes, the old song 'Tie up the boat in Idaho' might as well relate to rising sea levels.

 

[SMTA]

After we clean up the radioactive ponds, could we work on the pig shit ponds that cause Red Tide?

Fertilizer runoff from farmed fields into lakes causes nasty algae bloom.

 

[ecofarm]

Fertilizer runoff from farmed fields into lakes causes nasty algae bloom.

When it storms, retention ponds and their accompanying lakes flow into the Gulf. It's pig shit that causes Red Tide.

 

[JacksinPA]

Fertilizer runoff from farmed fields into lakes causes nasty algae bloom.

Yes. Feed them & they will come. Can be very nasty, like odors & no tourists swimming.

 

[ecofarm]

Yes. Feed them & they will come. Can be very nasty, like odors & no tourists swimming.

Given the choice between tourists and bacon, most people would rather be poor, pay state income tax and have bacon.

 

[ecofarm]

To be fair, it's not like Florida is the first state to suffer this fate. Most states, long ago, flushed their natural habitats away for mining and bacon. I wonder if someday Hawaii and Alaska will have too many pigs for tourism.

 

[JacksinPA]

To be fair, it's not like Florida is the first state to suffer this fate. Most states, long ago, flushed their natural habitats away for mining and bacon. I wonder if someday Hawaii and Alaska will have too many pigs for tourism.

I do like bacon. I suppose we'll either have to make room for the pigs or develop a synthetic bacon that we can extrude.

 

[Common Sense 1]

Florida deserves this boondoggle.
They sat on their hands for 20 years.

The people who live near the leak don't deserve it! They had nothing to do with creating the issue.

 

[ecofarm]

I do like bacon. I suppose we'll either have to make room for the pigs or develop a synthetic bacon that we can extrude.

Or moderate our behavior.

 

[SMTA]

The people who live near the leak don't deserve it! They had nothing to do with creating the issue.

They should have held officials accountable to fix the problem
They have had plenty of time.

 

[The AntiDonald]

Florida deserves this boondoggle.
They sat on their hands for 20 years.

No different than Texas and their catastrophic electric grid and generation failure. Years of being advised to do something about it and ignoring those warnings. Conservative leader ship shines again !!!!!!!!!