Tell the EPA to protect our communities from radioactive waste.

Protect Our Communities From Radioactive Waste

We urge the Environmental Protection Agency to take swift regulatory action to address the historic, ongoing, and future harm caused by phosphate fertilizer production in the United States. To that end, we fully support the legal administrative petition filed with your office on Feb. 8, 2021 under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Toxic Substances Control Act seeking federal regulatory control of the radioactive, toxic fertilizer-production wastes known as phosphogypsum and process wastewater from phosphoric-acid production. The EPA has acknowledged the need for a federal regulatory program addressing phosphogypsum and process-water storage for over three decades now. Yet the agency has failed to act beyond its 1989 rule requiring that phosphogypsum — produced at a rate of five tons of waste for every ton of phosphoric acid — be placed in "stacks." These systems of process-water impoundments atop mountainous piles of phosphogypsum waste can be over a mile wide and 200 ft. tall, and precariously store up to nearly a billion tons of acidic, radioactive process water. Due to EPA's inaction, there are now over 70 of these looming monstrosities scattered throughout 12 states. Despite it being well past time for EPA to develop its promised regulatory program, it has instead recently decided to aid in the diffusion of radioactive phosphogypsum throughout the U.S. by allowing its offsite use in road construction. We strongly oppose this decision and support the legal petition for reconsideration filed Dec. 18, 2020 by conservation and labor groups. Thank you.