Phosphogypsum stacks – Page 4 – PEOPLE FOR PROTECTING PEACE RIVER, INC.

Fluoride and the Phosphate Connection

by George C. Glasser

http://www.purewatergazette.net/fluorideandphosphate.htm

Cities all over the US purchase hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh pollution concentrate from Florida – fluorosilicic acid (H2SiF6) – to fluoridate water.

Fluorosilicic acid is composed of tetrafluorosiliciate gas and other species of fluorine gases captured in pollution scrubbers and concentrated into a 23% solution during wet process phosphate fertilizer manufacture. Generally, the acid is stored in outdoor cooling ponds before being shipped to US cities to artificially fluoridate drinking water.

Fluoridating drinking water with recovered pollution is a cost-effective means of disposing of toxic waste. The fluorosilicic acid would otherwise be classified as a hazardous toxic waste on the Superfund Priorities List of toxic substances that pose the most significant risk to human health and the greatest potential liability for manufacturers.

Phosphate fertilizer suppliers have more than $10 billion invested in production and mining facilities in Florida. Phosphate fertilizer production accounts for $800 million in wages per year. Florida’s mines produce 30% of the world supply and 75% of the US supply of phosphate fertilizers. Much of the country’s supply of fluoro-silicic acid for water fluoridation is also produced in Florida.

Phosphate fertilizer manufacturing and mining are not environment friendly operations. Fluorides and radionuclides are the primary toxic pollutants from the manufacture of phosphate fertilizer in Central Florida. People living near the fertilizer plants and mines, experience lung cancer and leukemia rates that are double the state average. Much of West Central Florida has become a toxic waste dump for phosphate fertilizer manufacturers. Federal and state pollution regulations have been modified to accommodate phosphate fertilizer production and use: These regulations have included using recovered pollution for water fluoridation.

Radium wastes from filtration systems at phosphate fertilizer facilities are among the most radioactive types of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) wastes. The radium wastes are so concentrated, they cannot be disposed of at the one US landfill licensed to accept NORM wastes, so manufacturers dump the radioactive wastes in acidic ponds atop 200-foot-high gypsum stacks. The federal government has no rules for its disposal.

During the late 1960s, fluorine emissions were damaging crops, killing fish and causing crippling skeletal fluorosis in livestock. The EPA became concerned and enforced regulations requiring manufacturers to install pollution scrubbers. At that time, the facilities were dumping the concentrated pollution directly into waterways leading into Tampa Bay.

Read more: http://www.purewatergazette.net/fluorideandphosphate.htm

Class-Action Silicofluoride Lawsuit

LEAD, ARSENIC, SILICOFLUORIDE ADDED TO DRINKING WATER
Notice of Liability Served on Seattle and Everett
Suit Filed in Federal Court in San Diego

http://fluoride-class-action.com/hempfest-2011

August 20, 2011

Seattle, Everett, Tacoma and other cities use silicofluoride as the fluoridation material they add to their drinking water. Silicofluoride and sodium fluoride are much more toxic than naturally occurring calcium fluoride. Calcium fluoride can be the most pure; sodium fluoride is industrial grade but relatively free of contaminants; silicofluoride is industrial grade toxic waste and highly contaminated with heavy metals.

Silicofluoride contains lead. http://www.nsf.org/business/water_distribution/pdf/NSF_Fact_Sheet.pdf. The EPA maximum contaminant level (MCL) for lead is 15 ppb, and the maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) is zero. Lead permeates all cells in the body, reduces IQ, and causes kidney disease and high blood pressure.

In 2004, the Seattle papers reported that lead at up to 1,600 ppb was found in drinking water in old Seattle schools. Silicofluoride, unlike more expensive sodium fluoride, leaches lead out of brass pipes. http://www.fluoridealert.org/sf-masters.htm.

New brass pipes contain around 8% lead and older pipes contain as much as 30% lead. All old schools, old homes, old apartment buildings, old hospitals, old office buildings, and old factories can be expected to contain brass pipes with high lead content, which silicofluoride will leach out. http://fluoride-class-action.com/hhs/comments-re-lead.

If water districts stopped fluoridating with silicofluorides, lead levels in water in old buildings would drop dramatically and lead levels in blood would drop dramatically. http://www.fluoridealert.org/sf-masters.htm.

Fluoridation exists within a blindspot. It has become an article of faith. One is told not to try to understand the mystery but to believe in it fervently nevertheless. When it comes to politics, one is saved by faith in fluoride. A politician who opposes fluoridation will have to contend with the wrath and bottomless war chest of the pro-fluoride dental lobby, who probably get their money indirectly from the silicofluoride manufacturers.

Read More: http://fluoride-class-action.com/hempfest-2011

Piney Point phosphate plant leaking again, threatening Tampa Bay

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, June 4, 2011

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article1173511.ece
________________________________________

Piney Point, the shuttered phosphate plant that once threatened to flood Tampa Bay with contaminated waste, is leaking again, and state officials are once again rushing to stop a potential disaster. Meanwhile, millions of gallons of potentially polluted water are flushing into the bay.
The old plant, built in 1966, sits across from Port Manatee about a mile from Bishop Harbor at the southeastern edge of the bay. The port has been dredging a shipping berth, and had hired a contractor to dump the spoil atop the Piney Point phosphogypsum stack.
The dredge disposal began in April. On May 11, something went wrong.
“Apparently, there was a leak,” said Steve Tyndal, Port Manatee’s special projects director.
The contractor, HRK Holding, noticed a sudden drop in pressure and notified state officials.
“There was water coming out of that stack,” said Suzanne Cooper of the Agency on Bay Management, an arm of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.
Workers found pieces of torn liner — liner that was supposed to hold any liquid in the reservoir atop the stack where they had been putting the dredged material.
As a result, “we believe the tear may have been caused by mechanical equipment,” said state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller. HRK officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.
State officials feared the gypsum stack would collapse, dumping radioactive material and other contaminants into the bay. To relieve the pressure, the DEP issued an emergency order May 28 to dump the liquid into ditches that flow into Bishop Harbor, but monitor it for harmful pollutants.
They estimate the amount atop the stack was 150 million gallons.
So far what has been flowing out at the rate of more than 2,000 gallons a minute appears to be nothing but seawater from the dredged spoil, say DEP officials, but they are checking for contaminants such as nitrogen, phosphorus and chloride, as well as other harmful pollutants. Test results should be available next week.
Environmental attorney Tom Reese questioned two years ago whether putting the dredged material atop the stack was a good idea.
“I thought the water would weigh too much,” he said. Engineers assured him there was no problem. No one expected mechanical equipment would get close enough to rip the liner, he said.
The DEP took over the Piney Point plant just south of the Hills¬borough-Manatee county line in 2001 when the owners went bankrupt and walked away. The DEP worked to drain off the watery waste atop the plant’s mountainous gypsum stacks, but record rains in 2002 added more than 200 million gallons of waste, leading to fears it would spill into the bay and devastate sea life for miles around.
So the DEP began discharging millions of gallons of ammonia-laden Piney Point waste into ditches flowing into nearby Bishop Harbor, spurring a large algae bloom.
As hurricane season loomed, DEP officials got federal permission for an unprecedented step: loading millions of gallons of treated waste onto barges that sprayed it across a 20,000 square mile area in the Gulf of Mexico.

[Last modified: Jun 03, 2011 10:30 PM]