Bayou City Waterkeeper, alongside conservation, public health and environmental justice organizations, sued the federal government yesterday over their failure to respond to a petition requesting stronger oversight of toxic and radioactive waste from phosphate mining and fertilizer production. The lawsuit comes four years after the groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to better protect people and aquatic animals from harmful releases of the toxic wastes into aquifers and waterways.
The groups are asking the EPA to revisit a 1991 decision exempting phosphoric acid production wastes from federal hazardous waste regulations so the agency can properly oversee the safe treatment, storage and disposal of phosphogypsum and process wastewater.
“Major spills of this highly acidic waste happened in 1999 and 2007, shutting down the Houston Ship Channel,” said Kristen Schlemmer, senior legal director and waterkeeper of Bayou City Waterkeeper. “Each spill was a missed opportunity for the EPA to act and avoid another disaster. With our lawsuit, we’re telling the EPA that we need regulation that reflects the serious impacts phosphogypsum has had on communities and ecosystems in Houston and across the United States.”
“The phosphate industry’s failure to protect people and the environment from its toxic waste should spur Trump officials to eliminate the industry’s exemption from federal oversight,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Our regulators should prioritize the environment over corporate greed, and that’s exactly what we’re seeking.”
In February 2021, 17 organizations petitioned the EPA to better regulate phosphogypsum and process wastewater under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The two radioactive, toxic wastes are created during the fertilizer production process, transforming destructively mined phosphate rock into phosphoric acid.
The wastes are currently exempt from hazardous waste regulations to protect the phosphate industry from the cost of compliance. Yet the nation’s largest phosphate manufacturer, the Mosaic Co., reported earnings of $2.2 billion in 2024 alone.
Weak state oversight of these wastes has failed to prevent environmental disasters. The 2021 Piney Point discharge of toxic waste into Tampa Bay fueled a deadly red tide that killed more than 1,600 tons of marine life, including tens of thousands of fish. Mosaic’s New Wales plant in Mulberry, Florida, has experienced at least four major sinkholes, including one in 2016 that dumped more than 200 million gallons of process wastewater and an unknown amount of radioactive phosphogypsum into the Floridan
aquifer. That toxic plume remains, and the ultimate fate and transport of the waste is unknown, according to an independent study. Most recently, Mosaic’s Riverview plant likely released nearly 40,000 gallons of process wastewater into Tampa Bay following Hurricane Milton last October.
Beyond Florida, Mosaic’s Uncle Sam Plant in St. James Parish, Louisiana, is poised to expand despite structural integrity concerns, and J.R. Simplot’s Don Plant in Pocatello, Idaho, continues to contribute pollution to a designated Superfund site. Radium-226, found in phosphogypsum, has a 1,600-year radioactive decay half-life. In addition to high concentrations of radioactive materials, phosphogypsum and process wastewater can also contain carcinogens and heavy toxic metals like antimony, arsenic,
barium, cadmium, chromium, copper, fluoride, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, sulfur, thallium and zinc.
“Once again, we’re relying on the EPA to establish stringent regulations and demand improved technologies for waste management,” said Sharon Lavigne, founder and director of RISE St. James. “Here in Cancer Alley, we’ve experienced firsthand the challenges of residing near Mosaic. Phosphate mining waste has the potential to completely degrade the natural environment — the land, the air, the water and the soil. The radiation hazards aren’t just a concern for the workers; they also affect neighboring communities. We deserve so much better.”
The Houston area has experienced major problems with phosphate pollution, as well. In January 1998, FKP Inc., discharged more than 6.6 million gallons of wastewater containing ammonia, nitrogen, copper, nickel, fluoride, phosphorous, and sulfate into the Houston Ship Channel on two separate occasions. In August of 2007, failure of a gypstack-retaining wall at the Agrifos facility in Pasadena, Texas, caused the release of approximately 54 million gallons of highly acidic process wastewater into Cotton Patch Bayou, which flowed into Houston Ship Channel that connect to the tidal portion of Buffalo Bayou. A major fish kill was reported in the bayou directly afterward. The following year, EPA issued an order identifying the facility as posing an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.
In December 2011, the same Agrifos facility was subject to an investigation concerning violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Clean Air Act. Among the allegations, EPA claimed Agrifos unlawfully disposed of various hazardous wastes into the gypsum stacks at the facility. Agrifos and EPA entered a Consent Agreement and Final Order on December 11, requiring the company to pay a $1.8 million dollar penalty and to conduct a supplemental environmental project to resolve the allegations. None of these events led the EPA to reconsider the exemption of this dangerous form of waste from comprehensive regulation.
Learn more about phosphogypsum and efforts to protect public health and the
environment from its harms.
The groups are represented by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson University College of Law. Bayou City Waterkeeper protects the waters and people across the greater Houston region through bold legal action, community science, and creative, grassroots policy to further justice, health, and safety for our region.