{"id":200460,"date":"2021-04-04T18:13:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-04T23:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/04\/04\/if-i-were-to-say-toxic-radioactive-flood-what-state-would-you-assume\/"},"modified":"2021-04-04T18:13:00","modified_gmt":"2021-04-04T23:13:00","slug":"if-i-were-to-say-toxic-radioactive-flood-what-state-would-you-assume","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/04\/04\/if-i-were-to-say-toxic-radioactive-flood-what-state-would-you-assume\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Were to Say, &#8220;Toxic Radioactive Flood,&#8221; What State Would You Assume?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you said Florida, we have a winner.<\/p>\n<p>A waste pond once operated by Borden Chemical is now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2021\/apr\/03\/florida-emergency-piney-point-phosphate-plant-pond-leak-radioactive-flood-ron-desantis\">leaking and threatening a massive flood of toxic radioactive waste into Tampa Bay<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This has to be the most Florida thing ever:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after a significant leak at a large pond at the old Piney Point phosphate mine threatened to burst a system that stores water polluted with radioactive materials.<\/p>\n<p>Officials ordered more than 300 homes evacuated and closed off a highway near the large reservoir in the Tampa Bay area north of Bradenton.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The state department of environmental protection said a break was detected on Friday in one wall of a 77-acre pond that has a depth of 25ft and holds millions of gallons of water containing phosphorus and nitrogen from the old phosphate plant.<\/p>\n<p>Officials brought in rocks and materials to plug the hole but were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Workers were pumping out thousands of gallons per minute to bring the volume down. Pumping the entire pond would take 10 to 12 days. Others were working to chart a path for controlling how the water can flow from the pond into the Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The pond at the old Piney Point phosphate mine sits in a stack of phosphogypsum, a waste product from manufacturing fertilizer that is radioactive. It contains small amounts of naturally occurring radium and uranium. The stacks can also release large concentrations of radon gas.<br \/><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Obviously, DeSantis is not to blame, this time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This is more a consequence of &#8220;Same old, same old,&#8221; corruption that has characterized Florida politics since at least the days of  <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Carl_G._Fisher\" title=\"Carl G. Fisher\">Carl G. Fisher<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Why people want to live there, or move there, is completely beyond my understanding. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you said Florida, we have a winner. A waste pond once operated by Borden Chemical is now leaking and threatening a massive flood of toxic radioactive waste into Tampa Bay.&nbsp; This has to be the most Florida thing ever: The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency on Saturday after a &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1136,1078,1186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-disaster","category-pollution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}