Mining Phosphorus - Florida Phosphate Film
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- Phosphorus, the most critical element in modern agriculture, has been acquired through phosphate strip mining in Florida for over a century, but Florida’s phosphate is quickly running out. When it is gone, the United States will be dependent on phosphate imports.
A new source of phosphate is discovered in North Florida. Local land owners are determined to mine it, but environmentalists vow to stop them before they can begin. The environmentalists point to Polk County, where strip mining for phosphate has polluted water and air for decades.
A county permit is all that stands in the way of the mining. The fight between mineral security and a healthy environment embroils two rural counties in North Florida, where the future of phosphate mining will be determined by a few public servants.
This documentary film was a 2018 Student Academy Award Finalist. It screened at numerous film festivals including the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival.
Contents:
00:00 - Introduction to phosphate
01:05 - Title
01:15 - Proposed phosphate mine in Bradford County, Florida
03:25 - What is phosphate?
04:55 - Neighbors oppose phosphate mine
06:50 - Previous environmental damage caused by phosphate mining
08:10 - Polk County
09:30 - Phosphate mining seen from above
10:55 - Mosaic sinkhole spill
12:07 - Mosaic neighbors believe their well water is contaminated
13:20 - Mine advocates defend their environmental record
13:45 - Mine opponents strategize
14:28 - County commissioners take tentative steps toward mine approval
15:30 - Mine opponents believe some commissioners want the mine for potential jobs
16:25 - Mine proponent won't give up property rights
17:00 - County commissioners will have to weigh individual rights against concerns of community
17:18 - Credits
Written and Produced by Alan Toth and Laura Newberry
Directed and Edited by Alan Toth
Videography by Alan Toth, Laura Newberry and Craig Hickerson
Creative Advisors - Spencer Nakasako and Mike Shen
Technical Advisor - Chris O'Dea
Color by Gary Coates
Additional Video provided by Cheng Liu, David Wilcox and John S. Quarterman
Drone Photography provided by Klara Fletcher
Music by Terry Devine-King, Dan Skinner, Adam Skinner, Randall Breneman, Jeremy Sherman and Socorra Camposanto
Post Production Audio by Berkeley Sound Artists
Re-Recording Mixer and Sound Designer - Bijan Sharifi
Dialog Editor - Eric Reimers
Sound Effects Editor - William Sammons
Archival Footage provided by Conus Archive, Ivan Veselinovic, Anna Medvedeva, Santa Korts, The State Archives of Florida and Jehuda Photo
Featuring - Jack Hazen, Courtney Snyder, Jim Tatum, Kristy Simpson, Marc Kubinec, Merrillee Malwitz-Jipson, Andy Mele and Ed Golly
Special Thanks - Canon USA, Blackmagic Design, Chris O'Dea, Jon Else, Orlando Bagwell and The Doc Crew 2018
Funding provided by The Fine Cut Fund at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism by Minette Nelson and David Eckles of the Filmmaker Fund
Additional Funding provided by The Berkeley Journalism Working Draft Fund
©Alan Toth 2018
The first minute killed me 😂, bunch of ppl opposed to it and the last dude old af be like, they can’t stop us from mining!! 😂😂
Well apparently rich people think that they can do whatever they want with their land. I definitely can't do whatever I want with my land.
@@craigb8228step 1 buy a politician. Step 2 pass laws to make it harder for others to compete and pave the way for yourself. Business are the biggest anti-business groups in the world.
@@craigb8228what makes a miner a rich person? Them working? I own property and I mine and I ain't rich and theres a bunch of dumb laws about mining but I just mine by my self on my own property and I just mine the virgen ancient river bed thats 8 ft under ground and I've gotten 18 ft deep so far and all I dig for is the river rocks for stone paths on my farm but I find tourmaline and gold and topaz and garnets and jade and agates and since it's ancient river bed it's never been gold mined by anyone else and I don't even do it for money I have a bunch of gold and I haven't sold a single cent of it
Also when I say own I mean I pay a mortgage cause I'm only 23. I saved up from a young age and got good credit and while all the dumb people I knew went to the cities and had terrible lives and most people chose to rent , I've been telling people since I was 15 theyd pay nearly the same on a mortgage per month as they would rent if they baught a house when the market was good during trumps term and so instead of renting and being In a terrible situation like my family growing up , I got my family out of the renting trap and got the perfect property for me to start a farm and I had no idea I'd start mining , I make pottery and I always thought it would be cool to dig my own clay and I knew that under the good soil was good clay so I dug for clay and was making really good pottery with it but than I started hitting pure clean river rocks so I dug a huge pit down to the rocks and sifted all the clay into one pile for using for bricks and pottery and cob and I cleaned the rocks and used them as the first rocks for my path ways and than I started digging specifically for the rocks and to see how deep I can get before I hit bedrock because bedrock is where all the best gold is at , I've been going for gold ever since I was young here in southern oregon and I do gold sniping which is where you dive with a pick and snorkel and snuffer bottle and you go to the inner bends of rivers in deep canyons during the time of the year when the rivers low but after a winter of heavy rain that causes new deposits and you mine down to the bedrock underwater which you have to be in the right type of spot where it's only 2 ft or less to bedrock with clay and rock deposited because the gold gets trapped in the clay and it the cracks in the bedrock so you get it to where you have a nice section of clear bedrock with a flat wall of clay/rock and you pick away a small amount than wave it with your hand to force the light material to flow down stream and you pick up the bigger rocks and stack them in a spot that's either already been worked or that's to deep to work and the gold collects on the clean bedrock because it's over 8 times as heavy as anything else so the only things that stay on the bedrock are metals/pyrites and you use the snuffer bottle to suck them up while underwater and when doing gold sniping you don't get any flower gold but you get more nuggets than you can get any other way and some cracks have millions year old nuggets that are worth $20k+ so I hope to reach bedrock one day and find some crazy nuggets that make all the work pay off so I can give my family an even better life than I can right now and my property doesn't have anything bad on it no arsenic or toxic chemicals and it's amazing natural ancient forest farm land in the only zone 9b subtropical rainforest in Oregon!
Also I made a home made sifter just using long thin 1x4 planks in a rectangle sandwiching chicken wire of certain diameters so I could sift out all the big rocks from the pea gravels/sand and than sift out all the sand from the pea gravels and than that sand contains tons of flower gold and small nuggets so it's the paydirt and the pea gravels and bigger river rocks are perfect for paths and the bigger rocks I use for stone masonry work on the property, I'm native American so I put everything I can to use and try to be as self sufficient as possible and I see the gold and gems as only a small reward for mining!
Uranium (and its associated decay series) is the naturally occurring radioactive element and predominantly makes up the bulk of the radioactivity associated with phosphate mining in Florida. Uranium is a solid where radon is a gas and is produced from uranium decaying. Uranium is ‘highly’ concentrated but not naturally (from a geologic perspective) occurring in Florida’s limestones. This is because of how it got here. Florida exists because it’s the cemetery for what was once one giant coral reef when sea levels were once far higher than today. As the ocean receded during the last ice age, the reef died and lakes of salt water were left behind that dried up. As the coral was growing, uranium was trapped in it and then you have areas with even higher concentrations of uranium where those ancient lakes dried up. The salt washed away since it’s soluble where uranium is only weakly soluble and so largely remains behind. This is why concrete from Florida is some of the most radioactive in the country baring areas out west like the Grand Canyon region with large geologic deposits of uranium. The decay of uranium is relatively harmless thanks to it being an alpha emitter and sequestered in concrete or rocks. Radon is the first element in uraniums decay scheme that is of radiological concern and makes up up the bulk of the concern thanks to its half life of nearly three days. Radon gas is a problem throughout the US. Especially in areas with basements because it’s heavier than air. Radon naturally bubbles up from below ground but will concentrate in low areas like basements or caves. This is why people require constant ventilation in their basements to suck it out. Radon is a concern because of the photons it emits during its decay and because it’s a gas that can be inhaled. Meaning the photons have a good chance of attenuating in your lungs which may lead to lung cancers, among others.
That being said, it takes a very long time of exposure to radon in most areas of the country to be worried about cancer and even then, simple mitigation techniques like opening windows or having a vent on will solve the problem. As for the case of phosphate mines concreting uranium in their waste pits, I don’t know enough about wind patterns and distribution of radon to know if it’s a concern to live immediately around them. That being said, I can be fairly confident in saying you’re fine to live by the quarries themselves from a radiological standpoint.
As for why you can’t bury the waste and solve the uranium problem. It’s because of how the laws are set up in the US. You’ve taken naturally occurring radioactive elements and concentrated them to higher than normal levels by removing the phosphate from the volume of material. The way the laws are written, even though you’ve done nothing to make the uranium ‘more radioactive’ you can’t dispose of it because a process has been done to it. That’s at least how it is for civilians. If you could spread the waste back out over all the area it was minded form, you decrease the concentration to original levels but this isn’t allowed. At no point did the amount of uranium change. It’s just the volumes of space it occupies that has. Interestingly enough, the military has its own rules for radioactive material and do dilute material with non-radioactive material to make it safe for burial. The saying you’ll regularly here from former military personal who worked with radiological materials is, “dilution is the solution to pollution”. Which is true. You can’t dispose of item X because it’s radioactivity is above 10 generic units, but if I take item X and grind it up and then mix it with a bag of sand, now it’s only at 5 generic units because I double it’s volume and is below 10 generic units. Still the same amount of radioactive stuff, just spread over more volume. This is a gross oversimplification because you have to account for what the isotopes are to know how they can be disposed of and the geometry of everything but you get the point.
Wish I could capture your explanation. Actual knowledge help displace rumor and stupidity.
@@gregschulze5906
Take screenshots, it will be several of them but it will allow you to keep the information.
I always felt like after thousands and thousands of years we can probably call it naturally occurring.
But I also understand why not... in college I chose my projects on the effects of non-native animals on the ecosystems and their eventual absorption into the ecosystem where removing the animal would damage said ecosystem.
Sorry, I'm on mobile and English is my second language.
@@gregschulze5906copy and paste to notes!
Made sense to me.
I remember my parents moving to Florida in 1969 . I came with them and the family and went to look for work, I was 19 at the time, the union hall sent me to a place where they mined phosphate, I remember one of the older workers telling me not to breathe and shut the window of the truck when I seen a cloud roll by, I didn’t think much about it until I got home. My tee shirt had little holes in it, between that and the hot weather, which I wasn’t use to, I packed my motorcycle and headed back to New Hampshire, as I recall, it was called the Bonny Mines
My work for the same exact mine, they don’t dig no more but use it has a warehouse to store phosphate. Just nasty. You did the smart thing.
The permit should require the mine owners to buy out any houses that want to sell within the boundary of the aquafer. Or, houses within a half mile of the edge of the mine and put up a bond to install a water system including water filtration and treatment plant and piping to every house and business on a contaminated water supply.
At a minimum. With ongoing independent testing.
Urban spawl and greedy land development put houses and businesses near mining operations that have existed roughly 150 years
Mines are not just put somewhere. You have to mine where the minerals are. If there are problems it needs addressed
This was a great documentary!
Phosphate mining is essential for global food security. But Mosaic should really spare some of its huge profits to compensate for the negative externalities.. it's insane how little they care for sustainability.
The fertilizer industry does not make "huge profits". Fertilizer is a product made cheap enough that a farmer in Bangladesh can afford to place it on his soil to feed his family... or they die. And the entre process is highly regulated by at the State and Federal levels to protect public safety and has been for decades.
@@davidkelly577 - The entire process is "regulated" by public officials who are wined and dined by mining lobbyists and corporate reps. It's America - we have the best legislation money can buy. It's about a $2-3 billion industry in Florida - proper mitigation would barely be left of the decimal point.
You seem to be pretty butt-hurt at the paltry and inadequate regulations these operations have to "suffer" under - not so much for the affects on things like the Floridan Aquifer, with provides fresh water for about ten million people. But I'm sure that the Piney Point deep injection cleanup in Manatee County will go without a hitch - never mind that about one of six deep injection projects have significant failures.
Tell yourself what you need to justify your ideology. At the end of the day your just killing people to satisfy your personal whims. @@47f0
It would be interesting to have a followup on this.
the old man backed out of his application a year ago. a new company came in and is now trying to do the same thing all over again.
@@yourfaceislameful people need phosphate, end of story
@@pointmanzeroall the people have the not in my back yard syndrome. They want everything they could need at any given time yet the stuff doesn’t come out of thin air. People are idiots.
Incredibly well done and interesting.
I love when corporations get special treatment to dump toxic waste directly in the backyard of millions of Americans
County Commissioners are on the take, lining their pockets.
Oh ya!!! 5 yays and 0 nays?
ALWAYS LOOKING FOR MORE !
Christmas cards with contributions for their votes even when it wasn't Christmas.
It's like this in every county and every level of government in Florida.
Does not matter on the political party.
Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Andrew Gilliam, Nikki fried, down to the Charlotte, DeSoto, Polk, ext County commissioners,
Every local charity, it's the largest churches, your town's main sports team, your towns schools anyone with any semblance of authority is getting a slice of the mosaic phosphate pie and any of the normal people get get contaminated wells and rivers and increased cancer levels.
For only $600 bucks Mosaic got a local charity the changes their name and start printing mosaic in bold letters on every single thing the charity prints or posts online.
Even the local newspapers are bought out.
Town hall meetings are normally at 5 or 6:00 but when the town hall meeting is about Mosaic and they reps are going to be there all the sudden. The town hall meeting is now at 2:00 or 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. No one ever mentions the fact that despite Mosaic saying they have no plans to mine in your town, why are they reps at your town hall meetings, why are they funding buildings and charities in your town?
My gosh, Mosaic has been running ads on how they are protecting the scrub jay. Whoa there, they have some splaining to do.
With so much marketing, you would think that they'd be happy to answer a few questions, but they refused to speak to me for this film.
Phosphate mining like most types of mining can be done safely, however companies who do mine phosphate like Mosaic definitely need to be more responsible and safe when it comes to water drainage and and water protection
actually no, no mining of any mineral is clean and 100% they all come with risk and shit does happen no matter how many safety steps you take. shits gonna happen as it always does so with that in mind we shouldn't be mining where it affects populations.
The one thing central Florida has is plenty of water. It rains almost everyday there. This isn't Arizona, Florida has problems with too much water! They show people canoeing in the swamps. Flooding is a big problem in Florida, not the lack of water.
@@randyreynolds4252 if you mine gold with water, then there is very little risk to the environment.
@@xXDESTINYMBXx Except for the environmental damage you do to get that gold out of the ground, mainly if you are talking about how they mine on T.V and that is destroying the planet as they are tearing up the permafrost exposing the environment to tons of methane. If we are talking about how they do it in south America that is no better, they destroy the jungle with water hoses, these are not little risk as you state. There is no type of mineral mining that does not do damage to the environment.
@@randyreynolds4252 yes it is compared to phosphate mining or fracking. The worst you have is unsettled waste water. Nothing else poisons the ground after mining and they have to redo the working area after they are finished.
If you ever smoke weed that sparkles like a Fourth of July sparkler, it's from the phosphorus.
The old man is right. But when what he is doing on his land effects me and my property then now it’s a problem.
My thoughts exactly. It's called living in a society where compromises are required to protect the greater good.
Both sides have valid points.
@@JMan-24 yes they do so if both sides have valid points money wins and your house is now worthless.
The video was brief but this definitely should have been said at some point to counter his statement. Thanks,
Update: HPS II Enterprises is suing Union County over their mining moratorium claiming that such regulation is so restrictive that it amounts to "reverse condemnation". The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution states that private property cannot be taken without appropriate compensation. HPS II claims that the mining moratorium is so restrictive that the county has essentially taken it for public use.
www.wuft.org/news/2019/11/20/the-battle-of-bone-valley-part-i-the-case-tolling-floridas-smallest-county/
Red tide is caused by these SOBs.
FYI if you are a citizen you have NO Constitutional rights. YOU are a slave subject to the gov. So if you want your God givin rights be The People of the united States of America. Not a citizen of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPERATION WHICH IS OWNED BY A FORIEGN FACTION
@@montneymon-ta-knee6810 - Which foreign faction owns the U.S.?
Good for HPS II Enterpirses.
@@panam4974many countries. Our government is dead broke.
Really good film thank you
Good Job! Nice explanation of an important issue.
Noticed this while driving from Winter Haven to Alafia State Park over that past 2 months. Was curious about these MASSIVE mounds that are visible from the highway. Next time I'm going to check it out with my drone.
Not allowed to film mosaic property
No fly massive dead zones, shocking. In scale. Water access is fenced. FL’s dirty, hidden secret. There is no way on God’s green earth that aquifers, water table, all water bodies and particulates in air are not drowning in phosphate (porous limestone) not to mention chemicals used in manufacture, runoff & waste. Imagine the holding ponds during heavy rains or hurricanes, drought? One of the most destructive forms of element extraction (US subsidized industry) where water is free, no monitoring or data available by a state that expunged use of term “climate change.” Salt water Red Tide is purposely confused and blamed for fresh water Blue Green massive fish kills in the Gulf from clearly visible releases from Lake Okeechobee. Additionally, fertilizer application is an incorporated routine on lawns & plants in FL. INow, a globally exported norm additive in industrial and traditional farming, sold to improve productivity fast with the same accompanying blue-green cyanobacteria emergent water contamination and dead zones. How can this be????
Those stacks r called gypsum stacks. They contain radioactive wastewater🤬
Radiocative waste
Governor De Santis passed a law this year (2023)to use the radioactive gypsum waste to be used in paving roads in Florida. What a guy!🤬
Crystal river here. I just recently found out just how my mining goes on in Florida, and the amount of environmental issues we're having not just from it but what that'll did to the everglades with building channels to dry out land for farming.
Where are people going to get the things we need to live in a modern world then?
While I sympathize with the nearby residents, that is just the way it works. If you don't own the land, you have little say in how it is used. The truth of the matter is, the whole state of Florida should have been set aside as a wilderness area. It is an unsustainable place for the amount of people there. Add in the hurricanes and flooding and it is fast becoming an economic disaster.
did they not learn from piney point?
It may be Mosaic's land but it's our water.
I am afraid those mines began wrong. If reclaiming land is done just after each strip, the cost is less. Also; In mine tailing disposal ponds help for immediate future reclamation. The US has this technology. I work in mining, tell you a lot of ponds I have made.
They do land reclaiming at the mines. The "Documentary" above is highly misleading. The raw ore goes thru a beneficiation process to increase the phosphate content of the ore (i.e. washing, floatation separation, and calcination) the mine tailing do not go to "disposal ponds" as implied above. The processed ore from the beneficiation plants, containing roughly 30% P2O5, is transported to local phosphoric acid production plants. Here the refined ore, a mix of fluorapatite ( Ca5(PO4)3F ) and hydroxyapatite ( Ca5(PO4)3OH or Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2 ) is treated with sulfuric acid to produce phosphoric acid (H3PO4) product and gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) waste. The gypsum stacks and ponding systems show above come from the phosphoric acid plants not the phosphate mines. Furthermore the mine aspects of land reclaiming and ponding, and gypsum storage systems associated with the phosphoric acid plants are subject to substantial regulation at the State and Federal levels. In my view, the above "documentary" deliberately obscures these facts to create false impression that the public health is being put in danger and to create a negative image of the phosphate industry.
@@davidkelly577 Thank you for writing this.
To that i'll add under reporting how important phosphate products are. and how much cleaner American mining is compared to the other countries listed.
i speak their language: "i'd rather see children mining it in Iraq and China, like they do Cobalt, then in my back yard, as long as i have my products cheap"
even with a land patent which is an allodial title , there is still a responsibility to the adjacent land that you don't cause property damage or death or bodily harm. this man just has the money disease.
I live in Polk County and there is a new company that has come in and is re-mining formerly-mined land. When it was initially mined, they only got part of the phosphate that was there. It's supposed to be a 20+ year project. I live about 5 miles from it as the crow flies.
they do the same with gold. it's called "mining the tailings"
Came here after the news about phosphate getting into the water in Florida now the eerie outcome of this disaster .
Exactly. He makes it sound like he's putting up a barn and the HOA is complaining.
What he's actually doing is digging up hundreds of thousands of tons of Earth removing the phosphate and concentrating radioactive elements on his land and the surrounding areas in addition to polluting nearby rivers and aquifers and causing massive red tide outbreaks in the surrounding waterways harming not only the natural wildlife but also other people's businesses such as tourism and fishing.
But yeah "it's my business what I do on muh land"
Fantastic quality doc, popped up on my feed and watched the whole thing. Whoever made this is knows what theyre doing
They denied him being able to use it for mining. He sued for like 298 million 41 times the county budget of 7 million from what I saw but can't find anything else.
because it was about jobs not money in his pocket lol 🙄
I’m so glad someone is bringing attention to this. Great documentary. Make one on the nestle water plants killing the springs and drying up all our wells!!!
Documentary? This felt more like an demonstration against a mine then anything else..
There are 2 major Springs that will never be the same, surrounded by or adjacent to phosphate mining areas. Kissinger and White.
KissingeN
I used to freedive caves and spring rivers. On the way we would pass these huge dirt piles surrounding something on the dirt roads adjacent to the highway. I once climbed up to see what was on the other side. I couldnt believe the color of the water retained. It was like a fluorescent turquoise which at the time i thought was amazing, but now looking back that probably wasnt the smartest thing ive done with no protective gear.
It’s not dangerous.
Who's putting phosphate on all the forests? They seem just fine.
Your point is understandable - but forest growth is nowhere near fast enough to feed a hungry planet - agriculture demands faster growth, and is far more resource hungry.
But we are wasting phosphates. We literally flush them down the toilet, and there are some promising projects to reclaim phosphorous from municipal waste sludge. We also need to convince farmers that "if a little is good, a lot is better" isn't helping them - much of the excess fertilizer gets washed out to sea, causing massive toxic algae blooms.
Tons of phosphorous in every wastewster plant. Can be recovered, but it's expensive.
www.madsewer.org/Programs-Initiatives/Phosphorus-Harvesting
It appears they need to develop a better storage solution than the gypstacks. Obviously we need the phospate and it appears as tho there is a high profit margin that could support developing a better system than just piling it up.
1) The profit margin in fertilizer production is not that much. 2) the gypsum is a by-product of phosphoric acid production not phosphate ore production. And, 3) gypsum is produced by combining sulfuric acid with phosphate ore producing phosphoric acid and gypsum. The gypsum occupies more volume than the ore.
@@davidkelly577 - The mating call of the Corporate Shill - "Oh no's! We barely make any money and we'll die if we have proper regulation!"
Well skippy, if it's so unprofitable, then they're idiots for wanting to get into that business, and I'm not sure idiots need to be in charge of environmentally damaging operations.
No one wants to live near a mine, but we all want the benefits that come from mining. We're going to get more of it going on as fossil fuels are phased out.
If you use any piece of technology. Live in a building not entirely made of wood. Use anything made of metal or eat food you're responsible for mining. Its got to be near someone's home. We can only pressure the companies involved to do it as responsibly as possible
Absolutely great documentary - this is so sad
R u learning phoshate industries for chemical technology ???
Lots of phony ballony info not based on fact but heresay and opinion. Mining on personal property starts with county govt under conditional use permit. Citizens have public hearings and they provide own opinion with no fact to back up claims.
i understand how the nearby people feel,but if the stuff is essential,they need to find a better way to mine it.there are a bunch of those mines here in pasco county also.
As a conservative, the old man really pissed me off when he states his property rights are greater than my property rights. If you mine on your property and pollute the aquifer that a get my water from you have trespassed on my property. There is dozens of legal cases that have set this precedent.
Watch the documentary spelled :Phosfate.
It will open your eyes.
Radiation and contaminated water are by products. Flouride is also a by product, and added to many sources of drinking water. Watch the documentary, then decide.
They produce radioactive waste at a rate of 5 to 1 and have no place to dispose of it. It's kept in lakes and ponds, slowly released into our three main rivers or kept on gypstacks until eventually leaking or collapse. The monitoring wells around the these stacks have elevated radiation levels above allowable limits. Some area drinking wells have had to be shut down.
The phosphogypsum stacks do have elevated radiation levels. They are mostly a concern for people who work on the stacks. Very small particles of radon were found to increase lung cancer risk for gypstack workers. The other concern is the water on the top of the stacks. It is re-used. According to one study, radionuclides accumulate in the water, increasing radiation levels.
This is not mining but fertilizer product you are talking about.
So basically like tailings ponds? Ugh.
The radioactive waste came from that earth and is returned to that earth.
If you're talking Nuclear Energy you're absolutely incorrect. Nuclear Energy is the most Regulated industry in the USA.
I live near one of these gypsum stacks near the Alafia
How about a follow up on the contaminated holding pond that’s collapsing! Good job, boys! As if Florida’s domestic water wasn’t putrid enough already!
Blame early developers for that.
It's over 4 years ago. Sinkhole is not related to Bradford County, old news used to fan fire of lies snd half truths.
Got to keep mining
great and i’m looking at land in those two county’s
Hey, I’ve got some great waterfront lots to sell you. Once we drain them! And chase the gators and pythons out!
I don't have the answer to this dilemma, but Phosphates are indeed needed by humans through being absorbed by plants. Our Bones are made of phosphates, and the energy we consume to live comes from the conversion of adenosine triphosphate and adenosine diphosphate and vice versa.
There is no dilemma - that is a false narrative laid out by corporations crying because a small fraction of their profits might need to go towards mitigating what, if they had their way, would be a completely unregulated strip and plunder operation.
Here's the model - find a resource, extract that resource as cheaply as possible, sell it as profitably as possible and move on to the next resource. Now, if that leaves ghost communities of unemployed, and environmental consequences that will affect generations, let the government do the cleanup.
That's unsustainable. This model was barely justifiable in the 1800s, with a global population just over a billion and an industrial revolution to provide for. It's unworkable with a planet approaching nine billion, with increasing demands.
These resources are not infinite - that doesn't concern mining and petroleum companies obsessed with next quarter's financial statements, but, there's only so much stuff in the ground we can extract before we can't find any more.
We have to start using these resources in a way that will still work for the next generation. In the case of phosphorus, it doesn't go away - it ends up in our waste-water, and in agricultural runoff that causes massive toxic algae blooms. We need to literally stop flushing this resource down the toilet, and there are some good efforts at retrieving phosphates from municipal wastewater sludge. We also need to correct some bad agricultural practices that result in excess phosphate usage - and runoff. And in the short term, we need to address the fact that large commercial enterprises can operate with impunity simply by bribing a few local officials - which, I promise you, is what was going on with the private one-on-one meetings corporate reps were having with the county commissioners in this video.
(oh - and without the phosphate backbone of the DNA molecule, we wouldn't even have bones or the ATP/ADP reaction. ;-))
i grew up in lakeland and my dad worked in phosphate mining for most of my life. in 2006 (2 years after the disaster in 2004), i got cancer. i was only 16. it took me 6 years and a relapse to fight off the disease. i remember going to a cancer center in a different city, to get a bone marrow transplant, and meeting FIVE other people from lakeland with my exact same diagnosis, hodgkin's lymphoma. all five of us were young, had been completely healthy prior to 2004, and we all had a similar sense that this disease had come totally out of nowhere. none of us had family history of cancer or other outstanding family health problems. one young woman's lymphoma ended up becoming leukemia and she lost both of her lower legs. another young man i met ended up not surviving.
i'm now, at age 34, an anarchist in support of LandBack and indigenous wisdom for how to maintain and care for land. we have got to stop this killing of the land and the poisoning of people, animals, and plants for the sake of "the economy". factory farming is killing this planet in every way imaginable. people have got to wake up.
I'm from Winter Haven! Now living in NC
Good luck in your fight to keep out the mining. Ever see what coal mining can do? Come to Overton Co. Tennessee and see the sulphur yellow creeks from the mine water runoff. Wilder, TN used to be a town. The sulphur water killed the town. 30 years later one can still smell the stink. Sure, let the rich families get richer, they can move away.
In Louisiana they made the casinos to "donate" something like 20% of the profits to the local community. As a result my little city suddenly had new police cars, new roads, new water treatment plants, new water pumps (hurricane area), all sort of things that we didn't have beforehand. The old dude who was like "I can do what I want on my land" is a moron. Most places you live curtail your rights as to what you can do on your land. Where I live now I saw the city council allow a guy to put up a giant billboard on property where it was not allowed, but allowed it as he promised to fix up the abandoned and blighted property that the sign was going to be put on. They said, fix up the property, bring us the evidence (pictures), and we will approve the sign for you to pay off the loan. Simply hiring people doesn't have the same effect...but does make him a ton of money in the process. So I would say if they were to allow it to proceed, they should make him agree to improve the area with part of the proceeds.
Mining phosphate is an important and fascinating industry. The one in North Carolina is remote, it's kept up well, and has its boundaries. This one proposed in Florida however, I understand. These people do got a point because even though land owners have their land ownership authorities, health and well-being of the community is far more important.
The only other option is obtaining phosphate rock from Western Sahara....where literally millions have been displaced for generations to refugee camps
You want to support this instead?
Try focussing on investment in alternative phosphate production techniques and reducing the costs of this.
The alternative is recycling, mulching regional growth and wet food waste, initially expensive (establishment of plants, packaging, sale & delivery supply chain) near landfill sites. Systems developed exclusively for immediate ROI or to quickly address a complex crisis with a specific (blame) solution merely mask manifest symptoms. The so-called solution will also fail because of specificity, a bandaid or pill approach to a
to a man made, introduced problem. Solutions on paper and developed or tested in labs do not produce miracles in real world “Nature.” And the state of Nature should prevail as #1 guide to any problem., a continuance loop of decay & regeneration where waste is not wasted. All we have is nature and biology and the rest is history.
The NC deposits are of an inferior grade and literally billions would die for lack of phosphate fertilizers. In a nut shell your literarily condemning many to die to satisfy the convivence of a few new "emigrants" to Florida who purchase land in counties where phosphate mining existed long before they arrived.
@@davidkelly577- Apparently, rights aren't rights unless your family has been landowners for generations.
Is this like a duke and baron fiefdom thing? I thought in America, a citizens rights didn't depend on the nobility of generational land holders.
I live in ft pierce far away from this but I think Martin county has one next county over
Excellent video!! This needs much more exposure.
If anything i agree because it’s activist against property rights but more than that it is needed. Can’t make fertilizer with out. This is one losing battle. It’s not just geopolitical power but the food that is grown in our country feeds a lot of the world. Fertilizer is more important than oil
Most of the statements made by residents are not fact but assumptions based on heresay. Modern mining methods used in florida phosphate are based on proven engineering practices and accepted by EPA. The photos shown in Bradford County ARE NOT linked to the sinkhole in South Central florida. Different geology. Another fake news story.
Nobody in the higher-ups care if YOU live or Die. Let alone old land owners. The thinking is, " Let's make LOTS of money."
The bottom line on this and anything else of significance for that matter is economics.
If anyone is truly interested in progress, finding a better way is probably a more effective strategy/method. Progress/development is inevitable, arguing or protesting- regardless of the level of passion, (and it doesn’t even matter who is right)…historically and broadly speaking, economics and the immediate effect on any people/area/place/town/city/state/country ultimately wins nearly every time.
E
One comment was to the effect of commissioners are “on the take” is unbelievable from 1200 miles away, doesn’t pass the smell test unless there is substantiated evidence. We get nowhere just throwing that around; what we say about others says more about us than it does about them.
I started with nothing, have built a business over 30yrs and have a deep interest in economic growth in my area for one simple reason- I don’t want my kids leaving, doing life elsewhere. I now know a lot of elected representatives, from the school board to county commissioners to state representatives/senators to the governor to a handful at the national level and NONE of them subject themselves to the scrutiny and pressure that comes with that responsibility for any other reason than to help. If we don’t raise our hands and become part of solutions by sacrificing our time, energy, and efforts…who will? My point is that in my earlier years I looked at elected officials as “important” and it was nerve-wrecking to even talk to them because I saw myself as insignificant. Because I know many of our current public leaders personally now, having grown up with them, I KNOW them- and I’m here to tell you that they are no different than you or me. Every single one of them does what they do as a service, most don’t even want to do it. They have worked hard, established a reputation for good judgement and most could spend their time taking trips or a nap or working harder on whatever they do. While not impossible, “on the take” is nearly never a thing.
When someone runs for office, find them and ask them one simple question, “why are you running?” If the answer is anything other than service or a calling you’ve got the wrong person. The problem with elected leaders is when they start actually liking what they’re doing, when they start realizing that they are influential or powerful and they begin looking for ways to capitalize on that…that’s when “on the take” happens in a variety of ways that’s often pretty hard to figure out. Career “elected officials” are a very real problem and they are very, very difficult to dislodge because of the very power and influence (and therefore money) that they accumulate through campaign contributions and the very power we gave to them.
Bottom line, if you feel passionate about this or any other subject, get involved at your local level. Serve on a commission, get to know and help your elected officials. They are no different than you or me unless they decide to make it so and in that case it’s time to find someone better, maybe you- to run against them and beat them. Then you’ll too feel the responsibility of making decisions that affect so many of us.
My philosophy in politics is to either help those who are in power at any level or to help by doing it myself. Protests and arguments and the rest have its place but it’s much, much more productive to simply help. First, establish a real relationship with someone(s) who are burdened with the responsibility of making decisions, aside from your issue- get to know them. Help them. Alternatively, do it yourself.
We’re all in this together and as someone who didn’t even have a TV in his house growing up I’m here to say that anyone can get emotionally charged on about any issue but action; helping to solve problems and taking real responsibility, is a very different and often misunderstood decision that requires research, time, effort, responsibility, sacrifice and work.
Protests are fine, they’re often a catalyst for change but change only happens with effort, leadership and people taking personal public responsibility. It isn’t easy but it’s how things get done. By far the most effective change is to find a better way to solve whatever problem you’re interested in and it just so happens that’s where the money is too.
Mining always needs safeguards and regulation to keep environmental disasters in check and more importantly long term environmental safeguarding after the mine closes. Most abandoned mines never used any protective measure during operation and non after they closed. To safeguard a large abandoned mine for future generations costs billions of dollars to clean up and stabilize. Half of the US former abandoned mines are Superfund sites still being dealt with to this day.
Very unfair that the residents have to bear the consequences and yet won’t share in the profit.
Maybe they have some of the minerals on their land. She said she lives extremely close. Then she can take what her land gives her. People need materials and it’s not like the stuff people need is everywhere. Everyone is fine and dandy having minerals and the mines that produce these in different countries. Once it’s in their area they throw a fit. They can become nomads in Florida and live under palmetto bushes if they care so much.
We need to recover phosphorus from urine and water runoff. Everything we dig out of the ground is being washed into the sea. What are people going to do when this natural resource is depleted?
We need to think about these things before it happens.
Mr. Hazen is what is wrong with this country..."I will do what I want, and everybody else has to suffer the consequences. I will make money, and I will leave the land a toxic mess".
Anyone know the current status of all this?
It is really nice to inherit such a big piece of land.
And a crime to make an Eco-disaster out of it , for short-term prifits...
@@tedthoman6580 are they mining in those two counties or was it stopped ???
You sound jealous.
@@davidgagnon2849 ???????
they are lol and they know nothing of mining nor its practices , they probably get mad at the eco terrorists too lol and then turn around and cray about false claims and myths
It seems like Mosaic's attempts at reclamation and mending of land, i.e. Streamsong Resort, should have been included in this documentary.
I owe you an essay
Phosphate mines(ancient sea floor) give us megalodon teeth. They make me happy. I’ve worked at phosphate mines in Florida, and North Carolina. Neat facilities.
The crazy part is this area, i live 2 miles from Moasic New Whales, the largest Phosphate chilcal plant in Florida, i have 10 washers and Float plants that seperate the tailings from the minerals,,, this place iv never heard of, seriously!!!!
Hi I'm looking for an update. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Hello. It's difficult to get clear information because the Bradford Country Commissioners seem unwilling to discuss the issue.
www.gainesville.com/news/20200222/phosphate-mining-near-santa-fe-river-and-new-river-divisive-issue
www.wuft.org/news/2019/11/20/the-battle-of-bone-valley-part-i-the-case-tolling-floridas-smallest-county/
@@alantoth6337 Thanks for this information!
Sounds like the mine engineers need to come up with some solutions. And some people that live close by should probably sell their homes and move elsewhere. Our civilization is dependent on mines of all kinds and you have to mine where the minerals are. I’ve seen mines that were reclaimed and you can’t tell there was ever any mining at all. Solutions can be found it’s just a matter of cost.
All the people pushing back against the phosphate mining seem really smart now in light of recent events...
Exactly real smart 🤔🤔
@@daniellereedy1147 even smarter than you previously thought
And even smarter three months later. The bay is dead.
@@JS-rp7qbwho cares
@@brickcitybeatdownyou don’t need fishing and seafood what a genius hot take.
Ha, ha. 'All you may leave on this beach is your foot prints'.
Guy is worried about money and his property rights "in this country", ..his greed will DESTROY this country! Old fool!
Nope. If it's his property, you can't do jack about it, it isn't greed for that reason, and he isn't a fool for wanting to mine it.
@@tavioli Look up the word derelict, and then tattoo it on your forehead
Ahh, another asshole who thinks he has a say over what others do with their private property.......maybe mainland China would be a better fit for you ideolologically.
Oh my god Laura Newbury is the most gorgeous creature ive ever seen. Her dusky voice. Wow
As president of the 7th grade paleotolgy club we went on a ''Dig" in barstow Fla. Geat!
I used to get a migraine headache every time I drove past the phosphate mine.
Didn't this mine in the documentary close down?
"Nobody can tell me what I can do with my land" Well if what you plan on doing with your land can adversely affect the community around you then yes I believe we can tell you what you can or cannot do with your land... It's not a matter of if something will happen, it's a matter of "when" something will happen...
I take it you never seen the movie gas land ?
@T-1000 WizOh'd true, however these companies and land owners have taken advantage of a Florida legislature that for decades has allowed them to crap all over the land. Just because you need phosphate doesn’t mean you require the absolute destruction of the ecosystems that you pull it from.
What’s further true is that phosphate is a renewable, recyclable resource, but you lose money with renewables, you don’t make it. THAT’S why mosaic et al (or is it only mosaic now?) don’t push that route.
and told man said no life can exist without phosphate 😂🤣🤧
@@brunomsmIt just happens that he’s right. Just look it up, that’s the first thing I ran across when researching why phosphate mining was shut down in the S Pacific over 100 years ago.
Calm down, Karen.
It all kind of sucks. If we want modern life, convenience, jobs and food security, we need this stuff.
I haul this stuff to a lot of hog farms in manitoba. As well as potash from Saskatchewan mines.
My whole family mined phosphate in Florida including myself. This state was built on it. Many many many families raised on it.
Na buddy Florida was built on Pine Trees and Turpentining. Phosphate is a new Comer to the scene. The Pine tree was Florida's economy for hundreds of years.
Not many of em left now lol.
Taylor County is dealing with saw mill and paper mill. They drain the aquifer. Leaving us with iron filled well water.
Phosphates are absolutely needed to keep the food supply in America the way it is. We really can't economically do guano mining again. But maybe there is a way we can use human and animal waste for Phosphates?
Bingo. This, like so many resources is finite. Maybe okay when the planet had a billion people on it in the 1800s, but it's increasingly obvious that we need to do things that are sustainable - there are only so many mines you can dig, or barrels of crude you can pump.
There are some good efforts at mining phosphorous from municipal waste-water sludge, which is where a lot of our phosphorus ends up. We also need to concentrate on farmers not just blanket-coating everything with fertilizer that ends up as runoff causing massive toxic algae blooms.
Leave it in the fucking ground.
You have to mine where the minerals are. You cant just pick a spot and decide to mine. You go to where the material is.
And it astounds me that that simple fact flies over so many heads.
That's not the question. The question is, do you mine responsibly, with proper mitigation of your business, or do you just get to plunder a local resource, then move on to the next, leaving ghost towns of unemployed, too poor to move away from your toxic leftovers.
Is this like lead mining in the 30s
how close will they be mining to the pro miners' residences?
Before mining. How did farmers grow produce?
Not effectively
Bonemeal
Sewage sludge has high amounts of phosphates in it.
Farmers have been adding organic material to their soil for millennia - think manure. Which is not viable at the current level of agriculture. Hence phosphate mining and the Haber-Bosch process.
Because you happened to be there when you were born, do you feel a right to destroy the land air water animals and people around you.
On the plus side, when all the ice packs melt and Florida is flooded, they’ll have some high ground to develop into glow in the dark islands!
This music begs the question....I wonder what Ry Cooder thinks of phosphate mining?
I am sorry to inform you but the government has been telling property owners what they can and can't do with their land for quite some time. I have family farmers in Va that are told how much tobacco they can grow annually, how many ponds they can use for irrigation, etc. Just because it is third generation farm land doesn't mean that the government can't impose how it can be used, I have seen it with my own eyes
The government has always governed what we do with our land.
Phosphate is sosos important
Linder Airport in Lakeland!!!
It seems to be that the agriculture industry has depleted the topsoil in most of the country. Not enriching the soil. Just the greedy.
Isn't it accepted that phosphate mining collapsed White Springs?
If there is phosphate, then there shall be a mine.
Piney Point, was the big spill, Ron Desantis told them to release the acid
It produces Radon gas. If you own or sell homes in Fl you know about this! You can't mine it out from under your home so you have to produce a barrier between the ground and your foundation. We need 4.7 grams of phosphate daily for good health. Do you really trust those other countries to provide safe sources of it for our consumption?
The tailings include Thorium which has value, and can be converted to a Nuclear energy source, but not weapons grade stuff the military wants. Responsible mining and restoration of the land is key here.
Also where fluoride comes from that they poison us with isn't it?
You can’t grow food without phosphorus , no matter the source. And many on this forum denounce the mining here in Florida, which isn’t surprising. So let’s say we stop all production in Florida. NIMBY (not in my backyard) has been around forever, including my neighborhood. But you have to get it somewhere, and you can’t just say NO. It’s going to be mined and produced, likely in Russia and China primarily, but educate yourself before just saying “this must stop”. It’s complicated. Fertilizer is critical to feeding people, and perhaps you are okay with not feeding people.
Seems like your suggesting this is a valuable resource than can only be found in a few locations.
Then maybe we should start treating it like it is. Do you imagine the supply of mineable phosphates is infinite? Because the abandoned locations in Florida suggests otherwise. And how does "phosphate is essential" turn into "therefore bad mining practices are just fine"?
Let me guess - mining companies should operate without any pesky regulations, plunder an area and move on leaving a toxic mess - or all the little babies will slowly starve.
I'm not sure that's a viable dichotomy.
Phosphate is only found in reserves in limited areas around the globe. Plenty of responsible companies out there that mine phosphate & reclaim (restore the mined areas) to it's previous state or even better. Regardless it often takes up to a decade to receive permit approval through multiple regulatory agencies before any new mining can be done. It's not the wild west out there & companies just doing whatever they want.
Years later (Iworked on film crews) we at the Smihsonian interviewing a paleontologist there, they brought in a fossil and started chippy awat the plaster encasement, I said" looks lake a Manatee from Barstow, FL.' You could. hear a pin drop.......
I wonder if a cost effective method to remove phosphorus / phosphates from the ground water can't be realized. It appears to be straightforward at first look because the phosphorus/ phosphate rich groundwater ehen exposed to sunlight and aeration should grow biomass, plants, and other aquatics while leaving behind water which is cost effective to treat. Wouldn't the local universities have more insight?
Phosphate concentrations and other contaminates in the ground water are already heavily monitored... And requirements for federally mandated mitigation methods are already in place to mitigate the impacts of spills and gypsum system failures. To listen the "complaints" in the video you'd think the State and Federal NEPA regulations under the Clean Water Act were not in place. And that dust mitigation under the State law and the Federal Clean Air Act and other mining regulations also were not in place. Frankly, in my view, the entire video is Eco-Nazi propaganda intended to promote donations to environmental activist groups.
Watch Pinocchio
The workers do, the businesses do, the land itself is claimed and yall put trailers up and live on top of it. I'm not saying yall don't deserve time to relocate but I certainly don't think this is a one side is right argument
The neighborhoods were built by the mines by greedy land development. Mining in Florida has existed in the bone Valley region and others for roughly 150 years