Mosaic wants to inject phosphate wastewater underground at the Florida site.

The Tampa-based Fortune 500 fertilizer giant is focusing on where industrial wastewater is located.

Mosaic Co., which operates mines throughout Florida’s phosphate-rich Bone Valley region for the past year, has been operating the mines across the phosphate valley region, with four facilities, including two in Hillsboro County, to date. It was applied either to a test or to an injection.

The drastic push of underground injections is the latest attempt from a $8 billion mining company to find new ways to manage waste in Florida. In December, the federal government approved the mosaic’s controversial request request, phosphogypsum, a mild radioactive by-product of the company’s fertilizer, as a component of road construction.

Now, the state environmental regulators say, public records show that they intend to approve permission that allows the mosaic to drill into the 8,000-foot planet of the company’s plant urban facilities. In November, the Florida Environmental Protection Agency issued a conditional approval there for the exploratory well. The company said it will be used to test the possibility of injecting wastewater.

Agents and companies will hold a March 11 meeting to answer public questions about the proposal.

State records show that Mosaic has also applied for permission to drill exploratory wells at both the Mulberry and Bartow facilities, but regulators have not yet approved those applications.

At its Riverview factory, adjacent to the eastern shore of the Tampa Bay Estuary, Mosaic hopes to skip the underground exploration permit completely. Citing the controversial deep injection that was well approved after the 2021 Piney Point disaster, the company says data from its project shows its own wells can be drilled in the surrounding area. A company spokesperson said that “tests are not necessary” because underground geology is known.

In 2021, state leaders approved Tampa Bay to release 225 million gallons of contaminated water after a former pond phosphate treatment plant at Piney Point threatened to leak and collapse. In the aftermath, state regulators approved a well that said it would “enable the ultimate closure” of problematic plants by sending wastewater underground. It was my first decision in Florida.

At the time, Agriculture Secretary Nikki worried that the movement would threaten Manatee County’s drinking water supply. Environmental advocates argued that the state’s decision paved the way for phosphate companies to apply for their own underground injection wells.

Glenn Compton, chairman of local environmental advocacy group Manasota-88, said these concerns are now bear fruit.

“It’s clear that the original permission issued for Piney Point led Mosaic to the way that this was done,” says Compton.

Records show that the mosaic takes remaining water from the fertilizer processing of the Riverview plant, treats it, injects it into a half mile underground, and injects it into a portion of the lower Floridan aquifer system called the Oldsmer Formation. . The pump can inject up to 4 million gallons of wastewater per day.

Compton said the only reason mosaics should consider sending wastewater underground is because it is not clean enough to return to waters like Tampa Bay. Plus, it saves the company money, he said.

“There’s no comfort in knowing that mosaics will move forward and get permission when they don’t fully understand the outcome,” Compton said. “All wells are leaking over time. It’s not a problem when they leak, but when they do.”

In a statement, the company said underground injections are a proven technology and not a cost-cutting measure.

“In fact, there’s a huge investment needed to build and operate wells,” said Ashley Gallant, a spokesman for the Mosaic. “The Florida (underground injection) program provides strict protection to the environment and allows for only infusion of non-difficult wastewater.”

The terms of Florida environmental attorneys challenge whether company wastewater should be considered “non-difficult.” Florida’s underground limestone geology has layered sinkholes, caves and streams, and state law says it is illegal to pump underground hazardous waste. However, highly debated federal regulations exempt mining waste, including mosaics.

Sending wastewater underground is a non-visual, out-of-mind approach, said Rachel Curran, staff lawyer at Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University School of Law. She said Piney Point “opened the floodgates” for other businesses.

The state’s Environmental Protection Agency “should not allow anyone to dump radioactive, toxic and nutrient-rich wastewater underground,” Curran said. “Instead, in response to that name, we need to require businesses to handle wastewater completely to meet surface water emission standards.”

A spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection said that the wells are only for testing purposes, allowing short-term injections of drinking water, allowing for shallow water in Florida and the shallow water in Florida. The interactions of the subsurface tables and limestone channels can be investigated.

If you want to start injecting wastewater into a plant city facility, as the Mosaic is trying to do with Riverview, it requires another permission.

Critics of the injection worry that wastewater will not be confined to the location where it was released, but may move underground and threaten the area across well sites. They also fear that it will be difficult to detect leaks and problems from the ground.

In 2015, Mosaic agreed to pay nearly $2 billion to resolve federal lawsuits relating to improper storage and waste disposal through the production of phosphoric acid and sulfuric acid in several locations in Florida .

Want to attend a public mosaic meeting?

When: March 11th, 4-7pm

Location: Sadye Gibbs Martin Community Center, 1601 E. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Plant City

What: The public can ask questions about underground well draft permits, give feedback, and learn more about draft permits at Mosaic’s inactive phosphate manufacturing facility in Hillsboro County.