Florida bill allowing radioactive roads made of potentially cancer-causing mining waste signed by De

[quaker bill]

50. It is a bad idea

However much of the hand wringing I have read gets it wrong. I say this as a chemist who worked in a research lab on this material and its proper disposal.

Phosphogypsum is mildly radioactive. It contains radium, uranium, strontium and other radioisotopes in small quantities. While the concentration is very low, the quantity of the overall waste stream is huge.

Now as far as uranium is concerned, most phosphate miners are subsidiaries of petrochemical companies, that interestingly have a nuclear fuels operation. While the phosphate ore has so little uranium that it would not be mined for this profitably. However, when you are already grinding and dissolving the ore in sulphuric acid for the phosphate, the extra step to extract the uranium as is passes through the plant is profitable. The uranuim is largely stripped from the process water before it is neutralized forming the gypsum.

The largest threat is that the stuff will produce radon gas as the radium decays constantly, over a very long time. Using it in or near residential areas will increase the long term cancer risk as it will increase ambient radon levels in the local environment. There is nothing to be done to remediate it, which is why it is stored in stacks, gnenrally a long distance from residences.