Florida considering using radioactive mining waste in road construction

Lung Cancer (radon from Phosphogypsm) vs Skin Cancer (Bitumen/Ashphalt exposure)

 

What is being proposed is a blend of this material with traditional aggregrates as a means of recycling it instead of just piling it up. It seems people are reading radioactive and making judgements without considering details

 

That is being proposed by an industry group called "Phosphate Innovative Initiative," that is a detail I'm judging that proposal on.

 

It is a group trying to find an acceptable way to recycle / dispose of a waste material. Do you object to their purpose or their name.

 

Who funds them? Follow the money.

 

No, I get that. I also see all the dust that gets kicked up at construction sites. Color me hugely skeptical this hazardous waste could be contained by using it in *any* aspect of construction or that road crews could be trusted to handle it safely.

I suspect we’d be doing to ourselves what the Chinese did with drywall.

 

C'mon, you cant be this naive, right? Who funds them? They have a website, they dont even hide they are industry backed.

 

So you have an objection to an industry actively using science to find ways to recycle their product? Who do you want to pay for that effort or what would you propose? Should we stop producing phosphates and leave the waste as is?

 

Since I am in the infrastructure design, permit, and certify business, I can assure you that there is a shortage of base material that is driving up the price. Limerock, crushed cement, and other roadbed aggregrates are definitely limited and our road construction is going to balloon over the next 2 - 5 years as state budget surpluses combine with federal stimulus funds for massive infrastructure development

 

Reminds me of back in the day when the tobacco companies were claiming that the chemicals in their products were not harmful.

 

So if I understand correctly, PG is hazardous because it contains concentrated amounts of naturally occurring radioactive materials. If they can be safely incorporated into road base materials, bringing them back to their naturally occurring concentrations, I think it's worth a look compared to the stacks they're currently stored in. As a DACS inspector once told me, the solution to pollution is dilution.

 

Yes I do have an objection to using paid for ‘science’ to achieve industry objectives of seeing how much poison you can legally get people to intake or have to live with unknowingly

 

Isn’t phosphate naturally radioactive? And it’s found in the ground in Florida. Amirite?

My question is why is it any different being used as a base under asphalt rather than remaining underground? Is it the dust aspect of it being blown around by the wind or being washed away to a retention pond, etc.?

“Phosphate rock contains the mineral phosphorus, an ingredient used in some fertilizers to help plants grow strong roots. Phosphate rock contains small amounts of naturally-occurring radionuclides, mostly uranium and radium.Nov 18, 2022”

phosphate radioactivity - Google Search

 

Limerock contains naturally arsenic beyond Florida allowable levels yet we use it for road base everywhere

 

The objection to phospogypsum is that it contains radium, but the threshold EPA has set to say it isn’t clean and usable is infinitesimally small (roughly 10 parts per trillion). My understanding is that most of the phosphogypsum from Florida phosphate production is roughly 25-40 parts per trillion depending on where in the state the raw material was from.

Would I want my house built from phosphogypsum drywall? No, because radium decays to radon and radon doesn’t really vent away in enclosed spaces.

But radon gas isn’t going to accumulate on a road the same way it can in an indoor space, and if the science works using it to make roadbase cement seems like it may be a better solution than building giant mounds of it or dumping it in holding ponds.

 

Maybe? Not an ag guy, but there must be fertilizers that don’t produce radioactive waste. Right? Often times it’s just the cheapest low cost option, or for farmers the one that produces the best crop yields. Who is to say this particular product shouldn’t actually just be banned in favor of other products? I’m not making that leap, as I said I’m not privy to the different options. I’m just addressing your question. I do know those are special interests who tend to want only what’s best for their bottom lines, and we’ve seen these sorts of groups present “alternative facts” which were more like whole cloth bs. At minimum, simply taking them at their word is extraordinary naïveté.

 

A lot of the roads in Durango were made from trailings from Smelter mt where uranium was mined. The paper would report radioactive readings of certain intersections, kinda like the weather

 

DeSantis and the like really would kill most of us to make or save a couple bucks. They are ghouls.