If you said Florida, we have a winner.
A waste pond once operated by Borden Chemical is now leaking and threatening a massive flood of toxic radioactive waste into Tampa Bay.
This has to be the most Florida thing ever:
The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after a significant leak at a large pond at the old Piney Point phosphate mine threatened to burst a system that stores water polluted with radioactive materials.
Officials ordered more than 300 homes evacuated and closed off a highway near the large reservoir in the Tampa Bay area north of Bradenton.
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The state department of environmental protection said a break was detected on Friday in one wall of a 77-acre pond that has a depth of 25ft and holds millions of gallons of water containing phosphorus and nitrogen from the old phosphate plant.
Officials brought in rocks and materials to plug the hole but were unsuccessful.
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Workers were pumping out thousands of gallons per minute to bring the volume down. Pumping the entire pond would take 10 to 12 days. Others were working to chart a path for controlling how the water can flow from the pond into the Tampa Bay.
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The pond at the old Piney Point phosphate mine sits in a stack of phosphogypsum, a waste product from manufacturing fertilizer that is radioactive. It contains small amounts of naturally occurring radium and uranium. The stacks can also release large concentrations of radon gas.
Obviously, DeSantis is not to blame, this time.
This is more a consequence of "Same old, same old," corruption that has characterized Florida politics since at least the days of Carl G. Fisher.
Why people want to live there, or move there, is completely beyond my understanding.
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