Mosaic, Inc. exploring underground wastewater well, raising concerns amongst environmental group
The Brief
Mosaic Inc., which owns many of the state's current phosphate stacks, applied for a permit to construct a well in Plant City to inject treated wastewater into the ground.
The well would test whether the subsurface is suitable for injecting treated phosphate gypsum wastewater.
Opponents of the proposal say there are more effective ways to test the subsurface, but Mosaic does not want to use them because they are more expensive than the proposed well.
PLANT CITY, Fla. - Mosaic Inc., which owns many of the state's current phosphate stacks, is exploring injecting treated wastewater into an underground well.
If approved, the well would be constructed at their Plant City facility at Paul S. Buchman Highway in Hillsborough County near the Pasco County line.
The company is currently applying for a permit to construct the well at a depth of 8,000 ft. below the surface.
The other side
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The well would test whether the subsurface is suitable for injecting treated phosphate gypsum wastewater.
"The only reason this is being proposed is because the water is so polluted that they can't get a permit to discharge it to the surface," said Glenn Compton, the Director of a non-profit environmental organization called ManaSota-88.
Compton believes this is a cost-saving proposal by the industry. One of the alternatives, reverse osmosis, is expensive, and he says the public's groundwater will be the expense.
"Over time, all wells are going to leak, and whether or not you can detect a leak through monitoring is a hit-and-miss scenario," said Compton. "So, by the time you find out there's something wrong with a well, it's too late to do anything about it, so you end up polluting the groundwater forever cause there's no good way to clean it up."
The backstory
In 2021, Piney Point in Manatee County had a gypsum stack pond leak over 200 million gallons of wastewater into Tampa Bay and cause massive fish kills.
READ: Piney Point settlement reached between environmental groups, state
The facility was closed, and a permit was issued for a deep well injection—the first in the state.
Compton suspects Mosaic Inc. and companies like them will propose more permits at other phosphate mining sites in the future, and he hopes it will not be approved.
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"This is an industry problem in terms of what they're trying to do with their polluted water.," said Compton. "It should be an industry solution and the public should not have to pay for it with having their groundwater polluted forever."
What's next
The open house public meeting will be held at 1601 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Plant City on Tuesday, March 11, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Representatives of The Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Drinking Water and Aquifer Protection Program and Mosaic, Inc. will be available to answer the public's questions.
FOX 13 reached out to Mosaic, Inc. for comment but did not receive a response.
For more information on the public meeting, click here.
The Source
FOX 13's Carla Bayron collected the information in this story.
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