MOSAIC PLAN IS TO INJECT WASTEWATER BENEATH PLANT CITY FACILITY
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) held an open house meeting to get public comments on a proposed Class V exploratory Underground Injection Control (UIC) well at Mosiac’s inactive phosphate manufacturing facility in Plant City. The site is at 10609 Paul S. Buchman Highway, six miles north of downtown Plant City near the corner of Buchman and County Line Road. According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website, a Class V well is used to inject non-hazardous fluids underground. Fluids are injected either into, or above, an underground source of drinking water. The permit has been issued for this 8,000-foot deep well to test and obtain information to evaluate the suitability of deep subsurface geology and confinement in order to determine the feasibility of underground injection of hazardous wastewater at the Plant City facility. The land surrounding the facility is designated mixed business and residential.
The open house took place on March 11 at the Sadye Gibbs Martin Community Center in Plant City from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Hundreds of residents came through the doors to view informational posters, charts, displays, and give written and video comments.
“I’m just here because we already have issues with well water around here from the mine that’s close by—where the county has to bring out bottled water to their homes because the water is contaminated,” Mark Zanella, who lives in unincorporated Hillsborough County, said. “Once it goes down there, you can’t get it out. Three recent Mosaic facilities failed. One of them was that pond that had a sinkhole. A lot of water went down there. If they can’t manage stuff that’s above ground, how can they expect to manage something that is 8,000 feet below ground?”
The DEP uses the open house format to allow more people to come in at their convenience, to get more community comments and participation and to allow for conversations with staff and technical experts to answer questions and provide additional detail. DEP states that it, “…will carefully consider all input from the public as a part of the application review process.”
“I have lived in Florida for over 20 years, and I have two young children,” Kaile Foster, a Plant City resident said. “The idea of injecting any type of chemical or toxin in the ground is something I can’t personally see any benefit to. I grew up in West Virginia, and the factories there put C8 and other chemicals in our water. Thousands of people got sick. Several of my friends and relatives were sick, and some of them were getting cancer…there were major lawsuits. There is no benefit to residents or to the community—that I have seen any information on—about how it could be good for the people. So, I want to be here to get all of the information possible to stand up for our community and say we are looking for a healthier, better life—not one inundated with toxins.”
