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PHOSPHOGYPSUM: SHOULD WE JUST LET IT GO

TO WASTE? PARTS 1 AND 2

HEARINGS

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION

POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND

THE CENSUS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 15, 2004

Serial No. 108–191

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL

RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida, Chairman

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

DOUG OSE, California

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

BOB DIX, Staff Director

URSULA WOJCIECHOWSKI, Professional Staff Member

JULIANA FRENCH, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 15, 2004 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Cotsworth, Elizabeth, Director, Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, Office

of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Harlan

Keaton, environmental administrator, Bureau of Radiation Control,

Florida Department of Health; and Dick Eckenrod, executive director,

Tampa Bay Estuary ...................................................................................... 70

Lloyd, G. Michael, Jr., research director, chemical processing, Florida

Institute of Phosphate Research; Dr. Malcolm E. Sumner, agricultural

and environmental consultant, Regents’ professor emeritus, University

of Georgia; Dr. Doug Chambers, executive vice president, director of

radioactivity and risk studies, Senes Consultants Limited; and Dr.

Chih-Shin Shieh, environmental consultant, CS Environmental Solutions ................................................................................................................ 6

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Chambers, Dr. Doug, executive vice president, director of radioactivity

and risk studies, Senes Consultants Limited, prepared statement of ...... 25

Cotsworth, Elizabeth, Director, Office of Radiation and Indoor Air, Office

of Air and Radiation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 73

Eckenrod, Dick, executive director, Tampa Bay Estuary, prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 84

Keaton, Harlan, environmental administrator, Bureau of Radiation Control, Florida Department of Health, prepared statement of ...................... 79

Lloyd, G. Michael, Jr., research director, chemical processing, Florida

Institute of Phosphate Research, prepared statement of .......................... 8

Putnam, Hon. Adam H., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Florida, prepared statement of ................................................................ 4

Shieh, Dr. Chih-Shin, environmental consultant, CS Environmental Solutions, prepared statement of ........................................................................ 46

Sumner, Dr. Malcolm E., agricultural and environmental consultant, Regents’ professor emeritus, University of Georgia, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 16

(1)

PHOSPHOGYPSUM: SHOULD WE JUST LET IT

GO TO WASTE? PART 1

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Bartow, FL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:33 a.m., in the

West Wing, Southwest Florida Water Management District Headquarters, 170 Century Drive, Bartow, FL, Hon. Adam H. Putnam

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representative Putnam.

Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior counsel; Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff member; Juliana

French, clerk; and Matthew Joyner, district director.

Mr. PUTNAM. A quorum being present, this hearing of the Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental

Relations and the Census will come to order.

Good morning, and welcome everyone to the subcommittee’s first

hearing on phosphogypsum. Today’s hearing is appropriately entitled, ‘‘Phosphogypsum: Should We Just Let It Go To Waste?’’

I want to thank the community for their interest in this issue.

As indicated by the wonderful turnout that we have today, this is

an issue that is very important, not just to Polk County but to all

of central Florida and even beyond that.

Currently there are about 1 billion tons of phosphogypsum stored

in 24 stacks in Florida, 21 of those stacks here in central Florida.

Thirty million new tons of phosphogypsum are produced every

year, and we meet today in the shadows of one of those stacks, one

of these gyp stacks, as the locals call them, here in the Southwest

Florida Water Management District building.

Phosphogypsum is a byproduct of the chemical processing of

phosphate rock mined here in Florida. In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated a rule determining that the

commercial product of phosphogypsum was a waste product and

banned its use for any purpose whatsoever. From that point on, the

phosphogypsum has been accumulating all over the State.

The possibility of a catastrophic spill in Manatee County last

year raised local and Federal concerns. In 2001 the Mulberry Corp.,

the owner of the Piney Point Phosphates went bankrupt leaving a

plant with unattended stacks of phosphogypsum. Since then, the

State of Florida has kept the electricity going at the plant and

monitored water levels in the phosphogypsum stacks. Last year,

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the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was granted

Federal permission to discharge more than 500 million gallons of

treated wastewater from the Piney Point Plant into Bishop’s Harbor in Tampa Bay. EPA and the Department of Environmental

Protection insisted that it would not be harmful to marine life and

others contended that the solution, while the lesser of two evils,

would be less environmentally damaging and more economically

sound than a spill. That discharge was estimated to span 19,500

square miles and cost $10 million. Although that cost will be covered by a trust fund that phosphate companies pay for environmental restoration, Florida State government has spent $40 million

so far to maintain Mulberry’s abandoned plants at Piney Point and

in Polk County. The expected maintenance and closing costs will

total $170 million which will fully deplete the trust fund.

Scientific research conducted and the results found by various

entities support a position that phosphogypsum is not a waste but

a potentially valuable commercial product. Conclusive evidence by

independent researchers and research councils challenge the claims

that use of the product is harmful and suggests that specific applications be reviewed. It can be environmentally safe and economically attractive to use phosphogypsum in a variety of ways serving

industry and potentially benefiting the taxpayer. Considering that

the environmental dangers of stacking phosphogypsum to the unlikely risks associated with the use of it outweigh the risks of storing it as a waste product. We will examine this question and the

environmentally safe, potential uses for phosphogypsum this morning.

This morning’s hearing will immediately be followed by our second hearing that will focus on understanding the purported risks

of phosphogypsum as determined by the Environmental Protection

Agency. Representatives from Florida’s State and local government

will share their thoughts on the risks and uses of phosphogypsum.

And finally we will hear the concerns of a dedicated environmentalist involved with the Tampa Bay estuary program.

Ordinarily I would yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Clay from Missouri, for any opening remarks; however, given that this is a field hearing and not in Washington, we

will immediately proceed to witnesses for their testimony.

As is the custom for the Government Reform Committee, we

swear in our witnesses, so I would ask the first four panelists and

anyone joining you who will provide supporting information to our

questions to please rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. I note for the record that all the witnesses respond

in the affirmative.

We will proceed to our first witness, Mr. Michael Lloyd. Mr.

Lloyd is the research director of chemical processing at the Florida

Institute of Phosphate Research. He received his chemical engineering degree in 1950 from Clemson University. After graduation

he worked in the Chemical Corp. for the U.S. Army and Southern

Cotton Oil Co. Before joining the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research in 1982 Mr. Lloyd worked 30 years for Agrico Chemical Co.

serving many roles from foreman to project coordinator and director. He participates in the American Institute of Chemical EngiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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neers and the American Chemical Society. Mr. Lloyd is quite possibly the only person to have direct contact with almost all of the

events related to phosphogypsum and the EPA since the Florida

Institute of Phosphate Research was formed in 1979. His extensive

research on the subject of phosphogypsum is commendable and we

look forward to his expert testimony. Welcome to the subcommittee, Mr. Lloyd, and you are recognized.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Adam H. Putnam follows:]

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STATEMENTS OF G. MICHAEL LLOYD, JR., RESEARCH DIRECTOR, CHEMICAL PROCESSING, FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF

PHOSPHATE RESEARCH; DR. MALCOLM E. SUMNER, AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANT, REGENTS’

PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA; DR.

DOUG CHAMBERS, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, DIRECTOR

OF RADIOACTIVITY AND RISK STUDIES, SENES CONSULTANTS LIMITED; AND DR. CHIH-SHIN SHIEH, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANT, CS ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS

Mr. LLOYD. Thank you.

Finding environmentally sound ways to utilize phosphogypsum

was an original priority with the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research. One of our first activities was to have an international symposium on phosphogypsum in November 1980. Our efforts looked

at three different basic approaches. To use it as a chemical raw

material, use it in construction and for agriculture. We did sponsor

research to recover the sulfur values but economics made that

somewhat impractical. For construction purposes the only thing we

really looked at was to use it for road building. Our plan was to

build a secondary road first, test it environmentally and for construction purposes and then go ahead and build a primary and

later on an interstate type road.

We did build 2 secondary roads, one in Polk County and one up

in north Florida in Columbia County. We have tested both of them

environmentally and testing continues on the Polk County road

even until today. Testing by the Florida Department of Transportation has revealed that the Polk County road has gotten stronger

with time rather than getting weaker. It also has shown fewer repairs than what is necessary for other roads.

Phosphogypsum has been tested for all kinds of agriculture. We

have used it for truck crops, for grass, and we have also tested for

radionuclide uptake by both the cattle and by the grass. We have

used it to find out about curing subsurface acidity and we have also

used it to improve the water penetration in the soil. One of the

other uses we have gotten into is for marine applications, for making glass and for daily cover in municipal solid waste landfills.

Until December 1989, phosphogypsum was sold as a product of

commerce in all States of the country. At that time, EPA elected

to declare it a waste and forbid its use, including forbidding research. In the time period between 1989 and 1992, EPA developed

the risk assessments that are used as the basis for the use ban in

the 1992 rule. The 1989 proposed rule did not have any data to

support the ban. All of the bans that they have done are based on

building a house on either the roadbed or building it on land that

was fertilized with phosphogypsum for 100 years. A residency

value of 70 years was used to calculate the risk, which is somewhat

longer than the values used in many EPA risk calculations.

The ban on agriculture was based on averaging the use in California for soil treatment and using it for agriculture in this part

of the country. The two uses that were used to get an average are

totally unrelated. They are like saying apples and oranges are the

same because both of them are fruits. The 1992 rule did allow the

use of north Florida phosphogypsum in agriculture and prohibits

all other uses. However, you can use EPA’s methodology and prove

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that building roads, using it in a landfill or anything else will not

produce a risk that would exceed EPA’s acceptable risk.

The question may be asked why are we so interested in using

phosphogypsum. We do believe that leaving it in the stacks is a

worse situation than using it. The road building economics are very

attractive. The roads we built in Polk County, we saved $100,000

a mile by using phosphogypsum over traditional material. The actual soil use—using it for agriculture in Florida could have an even

greater impact. All of the southeast is short on sulfur. Using our

phosphogypsum, we would be able to increase the production and

definitely affect what cattle raisers do in Florida.

One of the things we would like to continue at this point is using

it in landfills. We have demonstrated in both pilot and in the bench

scale tests that it would be possible to speed up the decomposition

of the material in solid waste landfills. If we can do this we would

be able to decrease the amount of landfills that would be needed

by 50 percent.

We believe that all of these uses are practical, that the risks are

acceptable and we would like to see something happen.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Lloyd.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lloyd follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Our next witness is Dr. Malcolm Sumner. Dr. Sumner is an agricultural and environmental consultant. Currently he

is Regents’ professor emeritus at the University of Georgia. He

graduated first in his class with a BS in agriculture and cum laude

with his masters of science in Agriculture from the University of

Natal in South Africa. Additionally, he has a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Oxford. He has edited five books, including the Handbook of Soil Science; authored and co-authored

two books; 249 referred papers; 41 book chapters and over 300 publications. Dr. Sumner’s specialties include soil contamination and

pollution, beneficial reuse of anthropogenic, solid and liquid wastes

in agriculture and gypsum as an ameliorant for subsoil limitation,

among many other topics. He has extensive experience in international soil science and agronomic research, consulting and teaching. He has received numerous awards recognizing his scientific

contributions, including an honorary doctor of science degree from

the University of Natal in 1997.

Aside from the fact that you are a Bulldog, you are a very well

qualified individual for this panel. Welcome, Dr. Sumner, you are

recognized.

Mr. SUMNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today I am going to

talk about the agricultural uses of phosphogypsum. This should be

judged against the EPA rule which came up with a value of 2,700

pounds per acre every 2 years for 100 years. This comes down to

1,350 pounds of gypsum per acre per year. So that is the yardstick

against which we should judge.

Now gypsum is used in many facets of agriculture, for sodic soils

which do not occur in the southeast here, so I will not dwell on

those at all. But as a calcium and sulphur source for crops, very

important, as an ameliorant for the subsoil acidity and as a physical ameliorant.

I am going to deal specifically, Mr. Chairman, with the rates recommended by our Cooperative Extension Service, which is the imprimatur of the State and Federal Government. For peanuts, in

terms of calcium requirements, gypsum is used to strengthen the

cell walls of the peanuts to prevent them from getting diseased.

The recommended rates vary from 250 to 1,720 pounds per acre

every 2 to 3 years. So you are going to divide those numbers by

two or three depending on the rotation. That gives you a maximum

recommended value of about 600 pounds per acre and a most likely

rate of between 125 and 430 with a minimum rate of between zero

and 83.

For tomatoes, the gypsum is used to extend shelf life. The recommended rates are between 430 and 860 pounds per acre every

2 years. You have to divide those numbers by two, giving you a

maximum rate of somewhere in the region of 430 pounds, most

likely rates somewhere between 200 and 300 pounds and a minimum rate of between zero and 143 pounds.

As far as sulphur requirements of the crops are concerned, these

are much lower than the calcium requirements, and the recommended values are between 54 and 161 pounds per acre, giving

you a maximum of 161 and a minimum of zero.

As far as subsoil acidity amelioration is concerned, the recommended rates vary between 2.2 and 4.4 tons per acre every 10,

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that was in my report, but my work has continued and that can

be now said to be every 15 years. So that gives the maximum rate

at 800 pounds or for 15 years at 530 pounds per acre per year, and

a minimum rate there would be zero.

To complete the picture, for sodic soils—which do not occur in

this part of the world but occur in the western States—the recommended rates for gypsum would be between 7 and 35 tons per

acre over the period of the reclamation which one can assume only

once is 100 years, and that gives you a maximum rate of 700

pounds per acre per year and minimum rates of between zero and

200.

As far as soil crusting is concerned, the other physical ameliorant

use, the recommended rate is between 0.5 and 1 ton per acre every

5 years giving you a maximum rate of 400 and a minimum rate

of zero per year application.

For ameliorating subsoil hard pans there is no recommendation,

but the rates that are being used are the regional 4.4 tons per acre

every 10 years giving you a maximum again of 800 and a minimum

of zero.

Now as far as the radiation hazard of the phosphogypsum is concerned, our experiments show that at the rate that we used, 4.45

tons per acre in one application, we found no significant increase

in lead-214, bismuth-214 or radium-226 in the soil profile down to

a depth of 3 feet over 5 years. There were no increases in radiation

in the above-ground parts of the plants. In the sandy soil we found

there was a light movement of radium-226 in a column study in

the lab, but this level in the leachate was well below the drinking

water standard.

So overall, from the rates I have shown you, the maximum rates

that are actually likely to be applied in agriculture, this 1,350

pound per acre per year proposed by the EPA is too high. A more

reasonable level in my view would be between 600 and 800 as the

maximum, but the most likely rate, Mr. Chairman, would be between 100 and 400 pounds per acre per year.

The last point I would like to make, the basis of using concentration as the yardstick in banning the phosphate should be revised

because I think cumulative load is much more important. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sumner follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Dr. Sumner.

Our next witness is Dr. Doug Chambers. Dr. Chambers is the executive vice president and director of radioactivity and risk studies

at SENES Consultants Limited which he co-founded in 1980. He

has been working in the area of environmental radioactivity and

risk assessment for more than 30 years and has studied both radioactive and non-radioactive substances. Dr. Chambers has worked

on projects across Canada, throughout the United States and

abroad. He has participated on the United Nations Scientific Committee on the effect of atomic radiation since 1998 as a member of

the Canadian delegation. Dr. Chambers is currently a consultant to

UNSCEAR with responsibility for preparing the next UNSCEAR

assessment of radon. He has supervised and carried out numerous

studies of naturally occurring radioactive material in a wide variety of industries, including studies for the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research to examine alternative potential radiological risks

arising from alternate uses of phosphogypsum in agriculture, road

construction and daily cover at municipal landfills.

Welcome to the subcommittee, Dr. Chambers. You are recognized.

Mr. CHAMBERS. Thank you very much.

As noted by Mr. Lloyd, the 1989 NESHAPS in effect converted

phosphogypsum from a useful byproduct to a waste and the focus

of the concern here was the radioactivity in the phosphogypsum,

which is the same as the radioactivity in the phosphate rock and

is naturally occurring.

In 1992 EPA did a reconsideration which allowed alternative

uses with prior EPA approval. To my knowledge, I am not aware

of any such uses having been approved to date. The EPA commented that the risk from indoor radon and direct gamma radiation were the issues of major concern at that time.

In their 1992 rule in deciding on the maximum acceptable level

of radium-226 which they determined to be 10 picocuries per gram,

the Environmental Protection Agency used a lifetime risk of 3 in

10,000. I will come back to that in a moment. It is interesting to

note that in addition to the 1992 rule, the EPA has used the same

lifetime risk of 3 in 10,000 to establish cleanup levels for unrestricted use in CERCLA Superfund sites which have been contaminated with radioactivity. This rule, I believe, specifically excludes

the risk from radon in that factor.

Another important consideration in looking at the EPA’s 1992

rule is the rate of which phosphogypsum is assumed to be applied.

I cannot compete with Dr. Sumner in that regard. I think I will basically compress my comment to the following: If you use a reasonable maximum application of perhaps 900 pounds then following no

other changes in EPA’s 1992 risk assessment you could then have

unrestricted use of phosphogypsum containing up to 40 picocuries

per gram by that simple change in the application rate to something that is more appropriate as opposed to an application rate of

2,700 pounds.

In their 1992 analysis, the EPA assumed a lifetime of 70 years

of exposure, and yes, that is indeed possible but it is highly unlikely. In their Exposure Factors Handbook, a document prepared

by EPA based on national data and surveys, EPA for other risk asVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sessments recommends a duration of exposure of 30 years, which

according to the EPA is the upper 95th percentile. In other words,

only 5 people out of 100 might live longer in a single home than

30 years.

It is also interesting to note in their 1999 assessment of the risk

from nonradioactive contaminants contained in agricultural fertilizers, the EPA used the average residency of a farmer of 17 to

18 years, also taken from their Exposure Factor Handbook. There

is an inconsistency in this regard. I do not have time to go into the

details but there is much more in my written presentation.

I would briefly like to comment on risk assessments we have

done in support of FIPR’s application for road construction, land

use, agricultural application of phosphogypsum, daily soil cover for

landfill. To comment that when you use distributions of parameters

to take account of natural variability and uncertainty the numbers

are very different. And we calculate using numbers that are generally traceable and would be consistent with many of EPA’s risk

assessments, upper risks that are below 1 in 10,000, well within

the EPA’s risk range from 1 to 3 in 10,000. I think this is very important. These numbers that we calculate would be for a person

who lives in a home built on either a road that had been constructed with phosphogypsum or on land to which phosphogypsum

had been applied for 100 years. We believe the maximum risk

would be less than 1 in 10,000, much less even than the 3 in

10,000 risk limit that EPA has used. I believe it would be unfortunate to preclude beneficial and safe uses of phosphogypsum by unnecessarily conservative risk assessments.

Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Chambers follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Dr. Chambers.

Our next witness is Dr. Chih-Shin Shieh. Dr. Shieh is an environmental consultant at the CS Environmental Solutions that he

founded in Melbourne, FL. Dr. Shieh was research faculty and the

director of the Research Center for Waste Utilization when he conducted the phosphogypsum studies at the Florida Institute of Technology. Dr. Shieh’s areas of expertise include waste characterization, minimization and utilization. His academic training, research

experiences and professional services have allowed him to become

one of the few scientists in the Nation who are able to deal with

problems concerning pollution that occur in both terrestrial and

marine systems. Dr. Shieh has published more than 40 scientific

papers and technical reports in the area of waste stabilization and

utilization. He has graduated more than 14 MS and four PhD students under his tutelage. Welcome to the subcommittee, Dr. Shieh.

Dr. SHIEH. About 10 years ago when I stood on the top of one

of the 300-feet phosphogypsum stack piles, one idea that comes to

my mind was what can we do about it. I mean, can we come up

with a better approach to manage this material? And just like Mr.

Chairman’s opening statement, is phosphogypsum a waste or a resource? Now by definition, a waste is a substance that we do not

want to use and has no usefulness at all. If the substance can be

used for any beneficial purpose and in the meantime does not generate adverse effect to the environment then the material should

not be considered as a waste.

So based on that concept we come up with an idea. We can apply

phosphogypsum in municipal waste landfills. There is good evidence to suggest that the addition of phosphogypsum could enhance biodegradation of municipal waste in landfills, because during the early stage of waste decomposition in landfills the degradation process is essentially aerobic. That means it depends on the

oxygen available so the microorganisms can carry out the process

of biodegradation. However, very soon over time as oxygen is depleted the decomposition process becomes anaerobic. That means

the bacteria used—you know, some oxygen compounds result dealing with free oxygen in the air. In an anaerobic process—again,

that is in an oxygen depleted environment—bacteria depends on

oxygen bound in the compound to carry out biodegradation. If there

were limited oxygen bound compounds then the biodegradation

process will be significantly minimized. So that is why it has been

reported that buried bacteria—I am sorry, vegetables such as lettuce—a piece of lettuce was still in good shape after being buried

at a site for more than 20 years, because the biodegradation was

limited.

Since phosphogypsum is enriched with sulphate it is reasonable

to assume that sulphate using bacteria colonies present in landfills

will use phosphogypsum as an energy source after oxygen is depleted. The sulphur enriched phosphogypsum can be used in anaerobic conditions such as landfills.

About 10 years ago, in 1996, we carried out a three-phase study.

Phase I took about 2 years, from 1996 to 1998—I am sorry, 1994

to 1996. The phase II started from 1997 to 1999 and three questions were addressed. First, does this concept work? Is this only a

hypothesis or is this practical issues? Secondary, we want to know

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under what conditions this concept could work. And third, we want

to answer if this process would generate any adverse effect to the

environment.

So in the phase I studies we concluded that yes, this concept is

practical. Under experimental conditions phosphogypsum can actually be used by the bacteria and generation of a diverted level of

hydrogen sulfate was not found. Also phase I study concluded that

if we put one portion—one part of phosphogypsum with three parts

of municipal waste together, the reaction would meet our purpose.

So following phase I, we carry out phase II right away. Similarly

phase II is to kind of extend the reaction period and use a simulant

of municipal solid waste, and we come up with similar conclusions

that one portion of phosphogypsum can be used with municipal

solid waste and can achieve more than 50 percent reduction in organic matters in 3 months.

So then immediately after the phase II study, we proposed to

carry out a phase III field study. That was in 1999. That was about

5 years ago, and it is still pending EPA’s approval. Through the

field study we will come up with very conclusive findings to demonstrate that this approach is an environmentally sound approach

and a lot of parameters will be monitored in the phase III study

to further assure there is no adverse effect to the environment.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Shieh follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of our panel one witnesses. You know, for

those who are trying to digest everything that these engineers and

scientists have put before us, what I’ve heard is that you have

through research identified essentially three key potential uses for

phosphogypsum—road construction, soil amendment for agricultural purposes and the potential for cover fill on municipal solid

waste landfills. And that there has been a great degree of inconsistency, almost a double standard or a rule unto itself promulgated

by EPA that applies to phosphogypsum but does not apply to their

risk models for other types of products that they are running risk

assessment models on. So if we could, let us kind of start at 40,000

feet and work our way down.

What—to any or all of you—do you believe that the risks associated with dispersing phosphogypsum either through landfill, road

construction or agricultural purposes, do you believe that the risks

associated with its dispersal, outweigh the risks of stacking it in

a concentrated form in the types of mountains that we see? Which

risk is greater, concentrating it or dispersing it? We will begin with

Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. LLOYD. No, I definitely do not think that the risk of using

it is as great as leaving it in the stacks. I think you are going to

have some long term effects that you will have to deal with. My

concern with using it is basically not very large. One thing that I

would tell you is, if we built a road with it, I would have no argument about my children or my grandchildren or myself living

alongside the road, and I would not have any concern about living

in a house 100 years from now, which I will not get a chance to

do, that had been fertilized with phosphogypsum. I think the work

that Dr. Chambers has done demonstrates this very, very strongly

in a scientific basis.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Sumner.

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. Chairman, I cannot speak for the risk of the

stack because that is out in my backyard. I do not know much

about that, but I can tell you pretty well categorically that if you

use phosphogypsum at the recommended rates according to the Cooperative Extension Service, there is absolutely no risk because we

were able to find no radiation residue as a result of applying

phosphogypsum in all the agricultural applications that we have

made. In fact, if one is concerned about the radon gas, in many

parts—not so much in Florida, but in much of the Piedmont part

of the Southeast, the radon emanating in basements is probably a

bigger threat than anything you would ever get from

phosphogypsum. So I think the risks are absolutely minimal when

used correctly. Now, of course, if you use it incorrectly that is another matter, but that is off-label so to speak and one cannot address that in a hearing like this.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Chambers.

Mr. CHAMBERS. Thank you. I would like to make two comments.

First of all, I agree with Mr. Lloyd that the use of phosphogypsum

for agriculture, for roads, for daily cover on a landfill, and there are

some other uses we did not have a chance to talk about today as

well, would indeed in my opinion actually be smaller risks than the

risk associated with leaving the phosphogypsum in the stack.

54

The referenced scenario here is building a home. So if you were

in the future to lose control of the land—and that is a whole other

issue—and build a home on a phosphogypsum stack the radium226 concentration, which is really the issue we are talking about,

would in fact be simply the radium-226 concentration in the

phosphogypsum per se. For any of the uses we are talking about

with appropriate land application with dilution in the daily cover,

the actual final concentration of radium-226 would in fact be smaller than it was in the undiluted phosphogypsum, and indeed so

small that it would be difficult to find within the natural variability of radium-226 which occurs in my backyard and your backyard and everybody’s backyard. And indeed the radon flux that

would arise from the incremental radium-226 because of the

phosphogypsum would in my opinion be so small that it would not

be detectable within the natural variation of radon that occurs in

homes in Florida and indeed throughout the United States at the

present time. Setting aside the absolute risk, which I personally believe to be extremely small, the incremental risks compared to radium and radon from natural background would be vanishingly

small and in my opinion not measurable. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Shieh.

Mr. SHIEH. If the use of phosphogypsum is under good monitoring, I do not think that kind of use will be worse than current practice.

One comment about the future of building on the site, the possibility in terms of risk assessment. For some reason that concept

has been used everywhere in the whole country. When I was involved in Zinereta Ash project a similar question was always

asked, how about 100 years later if my grandchildren build a house

on the abandoned site with all kinds of waste material? We need

to be honest and understood that today we already have very good

systems, OK. One of the provision of service I am doing now is

when the builder or the developer, they try to develop a site for

new business, community or new residential community, they are

required to do so-called phase I site assessment studies. And

through that study any location—any property will be investigated

for the history of the property. So practically and realistically that

scenario will not happen even 100 years later unless the whole governmental system was destroyed for some reason, otherwise that is

really not a scenario that would happen, that someone would build

a house on the top of a waste pile. It is not going to happen. Again,

we have very good system today already. So I truly believe if any

good use of the material and under monitoring, then I support that

idea.

Mr. PUTNAM. You know, the only way to deal with these issues

is in a straight-forward science-based manner and you have certainly given us a foundation for a science-based approach to alternative uses of phosphogypsum. But, you know, radioactivity, that

term certainly conjures up concerns, fear even among people. Help

the subcommittee to understand the context of the radium-226 levels. How does it relate to other commonplace daily activities that

people may be engaged in and whatever the background radiation

of those may be, whether it is flying or smoking or the presence

of radon in homes today? Help us put that number in context.

55

Mr. CHAMBERS. Perhaps I will try. First of all, I would like to try

and provide a small context on the risk range of 1 times 10 to the

minus 4. As I mentioned—that is 1 in 10,000—as I mentioned earlier, the EPA has also used risk numbers as high as 3 times 10 to

the minus 4 in rulemakings and therefore at least for that purpose,

EPA, one would presume, considers that level of risk as safe. Well

what is a risk of 1 in 10,000? That is a lifetime risk. So if you use

EPA’s notion of a lifetime of 70 or 75 years, in essence that works

out to an annual risk of about one in a million. I am not going to

tell you my exact age, but I am somewhere between 50 and 60 and

it is pretty typical unfortunately that at my age natural causes of

death in the average person, I would have a risk of about one in

a million from just 1 hour of doing what I do every day. So assuming this hearing this morning takes 2 hours, my risk would be approximately two in a million just from just simply sitting in this

room and enjoying this conversation. That’s the kind of context we

are looking at. It is a risk I suffer every hour or am exposed to

every hour of the day at my age. It is unavoidable.

Radioactivity is unavoidable. All soils everywhere have naturally

occurring radioactivity and in particular radium-226, which is the

focus really of this discussion because it is a source of the radon

that crops up in the open air and comes through our floors into our

homes.

In any event, if you look at—it does not matter whether you look

at EPA’s risk assessments or ours, the incremental contributions of

radium, even after 100 years of application, that I think this panel

would consider exceptionally high application rates, is still well

within the range of natural radium-226 in soils. So you are not

going to be changing that. And if you look at—GEOMET did a very

detailed study of radium in soils and indoor radon in homes in this

county and in many other counties in Florida. And if you look at

the maximum incremental radon contribution it is less than a

tenth of the average and less than a thirtieth of the upper number.

It is a very small fraction, much less than the variation you would

go from one home to the next because of the difference in life

styles, slightly different age of construction. It is not a detectable

phenomenon. I am a physicist, I like models, it is something I can

predict. It is something EPA can predict, but I believe it is not

something you could actually measure because it is there naturally

in much higher and very variable quantities.

Finally I might add, the EPA has a 4 picocurie per liter standard

at which they would like to have people initiate cleanup in the

homes and what we are talking about, the maximum incremental

contribution that I would predict would be more than 20 times

smaller than that. The absolute maximum much less the average.

I hope that provides some context. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does anyone else wish to add anything to that? Mr.

Lloyd.

Mr. LLOYD. I always find it kind of comical that since you are

in a granite office building in Washington, you probably have more

radon than what most of the people in this room experience in a

day.

Mr. PUTNAM. EPA has a nice big granite building, too, maybe

that is what is going on there. [Laughter.]

56

The roads that were constructed in Polk County, there are homes

along that road, Mr. Lloyd. Do you know how many homes are

along that road?

Mr. LLOYD. May I ask a question?

Mr. PUTNAM. You may.

Mr. LLOYD. John, how many homes?

VOICE. About 40.

Mr. LLOYD. About 40.

Mr. PUTNAM. Forty homes along the road that had

phosphogypsum used as the road base. Does testing continue along

that road?

Mr. LLOYD. Testing is continuing on it even until today.

Mr. PUTNAM. And you mentioned that the DOT testing indicated

that roadbed has grown stronger over time, which is certainly a favorable thing for its durability as a roadbed, but what are the

health effects that have been detected as part of that testing?

Mr. LLOYD. The road is kind of difficult to come up with the

health effect for one reason. Everything we have shown is fairly

normal. The land the road is built on is reclaimed land. The radiation over the land next to the road is higher than the radiation

on the road. So the people that are living there are experiencing

radiation levels that are higher than they would ever have if they

built the house on top of the road.

Mr. PUTNAM. OK. What other leachates have been found in the

monitoring of the roads already built in Polk County?

Mr. LLOYD. The only thing that we may have seen—and I will

ask Dr. Burkee to correct me if I am wrong—is the sulphate increase at one well.

Mr. PUTNAM. You mentioned that NASA and the Department of

Energy have expressed an interest in using phosphogypsum based

glass in a ceramic material. Could you elaborate on that?

Mr. LLOYD. Well we have a proposal to make glass out of

phosphogypsum. We have done all the research. We are trying to—

the people that did the research are trying to put together a system

to start making glass. One of the techniques that has been studied

would actually—in preparing the phosphogypsum for use, would

enable you to produce hydrogen. In the course of our discussions—

and this is still a preliminary study at this point, a paper study

more than anything else. But in talking to both NASA and DOE,

they are very interested in the fact that you might be able to

produce hydrogen. NASA because they use it for launching space

vessels and DOE because they would like to see us go this hydrogen-based economy that has been proposed that would reduce

greenhouse gases. We are interested and we are working. That is

all I know to say at the moment.

Mr. PUTNAM. All right, sir. Dr. Chambers.

Mr. CHAMBERS. I have one further comment. I did not have the

chance in my comments this morning to say anything about the

glass. I would like to point out that when you make the glass you

do not do anything obviously to change the gamma radiation, but,

in fact, you trap the radon. The radon cannot escape. So in essence

because it is like wall tiles—it is like a ceramic like material—the

radon which has a half life of 3.8 days will decay within the glass

like material and actually not be available to enter the rooms of

57

living spaces or working spaces. So in actual fact, the radon risk

in that case would be very much lower.

Mr. PUTNAM. Could you elaborate on the half life of 3.8 days?

Was that what you said?

Mr. CHAMBERS. Yes, I will. Radon-222 is a noble gas so it is able

to diffuse through air and through soils, but it does have a radioactive half life. If you take 120 atoms of radon now in 3.82 days

you will have approximately, plus or minus, 60 and in 7.6 days if

my arithmetic is correct, you will have half of that again. So you

will have 30. In another 3.8 days you will have 15. That is about

as far as my mental math can carry me.

But in essence the radon that is produced within the matrix of

a soil, within a matrix of PG, within a matrix of a cemented road

can only survive because of its physical half life for a finite time

and the average time is 3.8 days. Therefore, if something interferes

with how easy it is to diffuse through the pore space well then it

will decay and never actually enter the open air or the air of a

building in which you might use tiles for a roof or a floor. So in

actual fact, as I say, it does not do anything to change the gamma

levels which is another kind of radioactivity. But certainly making

it into a glass-like material hugely reduces the fraction of radon

that can survive long enough to actually be released into room air.

Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

The EPA risk model for phosphogypsum was a 70-year residency

for occupants of a hypothetical house. When calculating the risk for

phosphogypsum that is 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for 70 years.

Does that assume an airtight house, air conditioning, no air conditioning, ventilation, windows open? How does that factor into that

risk assessment?

Mr. CHAMBERS. If I understand the EPA’s risk analysis correctly,

I do not think they actually considered any of that. I think they

used—I stand to be corrected, but I believe they used a generic factor whereby they took the radium concentration in the soil that will

be built up over time by application of this very high fertilizer rate,

for example, and then use a factor—for every picocurie per gram

of radium-226 in the soil you would find 1.25 picocuries per liter

in the indoor air of the home. So it is a generic—it is a generic

number.

Mr. PUTNAM. And what is a more reasonable risk analysis number to use other than the 70-year residency?

Mr. CHAMBERS. I have some sympathy for EPA nationally, but

when you look at—for example, in Florida there is a huge amount

of data that relates—from the GEOMET survey, for example, that

relates specifically to soil concentrations of radium and the corresponding indoor radon levels. So one of the things that we did in

our risk assessment for uses in Florida was to try and use as much

Florida-specific data as possible. I think it is important where information exists to use data that is appropriate for the application

and appropriate for the intended area of use.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lloyd, have you received approval from EPA to

pursue NASA’s request to utilize phosphogypsum in glass?

Mr. LLOYD. We have not really talked to EPA about the glass.

That will be the next thing when we decide to go into a full scale

58

plan. We have done all the benchwork, we have done all the pilot

work. We would like to go into a demonstration sized plant and

that is in the works. We will need to go to EPA at that time. Based

on our past experience with them, it will take 3 or 4 years to get

an answer.

Mr. PUTNAM. Do you have any permit requests pending with

them now?

Mr. LLOYD. We have one with them for the landfill that Dr.

Shieh mentioned. Down in Brevard County they have agreed to let

Dr. Shieh build a test cell that would be large enough to demonstrate to landfill operators the effectiveness of this technique. We

asked 2 years ago, plus or minus, to get approval to do that. We

have had—the problem we experience with most of these things is

EPA said in 1992 that they would define the method to get an exemption to the rule. They have never done anything. We have tried

to put things together, working particularly with Dr. Chambers for

requests that would meet all of the requirements. Our biggest problem is we turn it in and in about 4 months, 6 months or 8 months

later we get something that says you need to add this. So we add

that, and in another 4, 6 or 8 months we get another request that

says you need to add this. So getting anything through EPA in

terms of an exemption to the rule is not the simplest thing that

anybody ever did. The only thing that we have that would stand

up today is, EPA has said that if we wanted to build a road, if we

would get a deed restriction on the road so that you could never

build a house on it, that they would have no objection to building

the road. But even when we have worked with getting an exemption request for a given road, even with a deed restriction, we have

to have an exemption request. It has been a long-term, frustrating

affair.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Sumner, you went into great technical detail on

the calculations that EPA used particularly for the agricultural

uses. Could you take some time to elaborate on the calculations

they made versus the calculations that you believe that they should

have made using realistic assumptions for the soil types and the

crops that are being tested?

Mr. SUMNER. Well they came up with this value that was 2,700

pounds per acre every 2 years. That is the standard that they set

the rule on. Now, I do not know the exact calculations that they

went through establishing the rule. What I am saying is that the

uses of gypsum that are recommended by the Cooperative Extension Service are all much below that level. So that should—the actual uses that are recommended in the agricultural industry are

the rates that should be used in the calculation, not the value they

used. That is my point.

Mr. PUTNAM. Are the calculations that they used available?

Mr. SUMNER. Yes, I think so. Well, I do not know if they are

available. I started at the point of 2,700. That is what I know. I

do not know about their calculations.

Mr. PUTNAM. Are the working papers that are used by the EPA,

are they available to the public through our traditional open

records laws?

Mr. LLOYD. The working papers for the 2,700 pounds are available in the BID documents for the 1989 rule. What they did was

59

take California’s applications for sodic soil, which is, as Dr. Sumner

has mentioned, are significantly higher than you would use for fertilization. They took those and averaged them with numbers that

were used for fertilization from Georgia and Florida. They did a

couple of things wrong when they did this. No. 1, they were not

agronomists obviously. They did not look at what Dr. Sumner has

mentioned about peanuts in which you apply phosphogypsum 1

year but you do not plant peanuts again for another 2 years. You

use a 3-year crop rotation. If you do not do this, you get nematodes

that destroy the quantity of peanuts and you get a fungus that will

destroy the quality. So they took these two totally dissimilar techniques and used them to average to come up with a 1,350 pound

per year average. We should really be dealing, as Dr. Sumner says,

probably no more than 400 or 500 pounds per acre. We should not

be comparing, as I say, the soil treatment with fertilization. This

is like taking apples and oranges and saying they are both the

same because they are fruit.

Mr. PUTNAM. You have made that point that the California numbers are irrelevant to the needs of the Southeast. Could you explain

what a sodic soil is and why it is a different animal than the

Southeast?

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. Chairman, I think I will do that.

Mr. LLOYD. He can do a better job than I can.

Mr. PUTNAM. Go right ahead.

Mr. SUMNER. Sodic soil, Mr. Chairman, is a soil that is impacted

negatively by the presence of sodium irons. The sodium irons in the

soil cause the physical properties of the soil—in other words, the

ability of the soil to accept water at the surface and transmit water

through the profile—to be very negatively impacted. So in sodic soil

the transport of water from rainfall to some groundwater point is

impacted very negatively. It is very slow and they are very difficult

soils to work on. The phosphate—well phosphogypsum or any gypsum—generic gypsum is used in the reclamation of these soils and

supplied at—relative to what we use in the Southeast here, relatively high rates, in order to exchange the sodium from the exchange complex of the soil and replace it with calcium which improves the physical condition of the soil. So that is a reclamation

technique, and you would only do that once. So the rates that they

use, sort of 35 tons maximum, would be for a one time application

to reclaim the profile so you can bring it back into agriculture. So

you should divide that by 100, in my view, by the standards that

the EPA has used to assess the annual rate, because you only

apply that once in the whole lifetime of the soil. Once you reclaim

the soil, it will stay reclaimed provided it would not be inundated

by the sea or some other negative introduction of sodium into the

soil. So once you reclaim it it is reclaimed. So that is the crux. And,

of course, it is not relevant here in the Southeast at all. We do not

have any sodic soils that are in agriculture in the Southeast at all.

Mr. PUTNAM. Now in north Florida the phosphogypsum byproduct of the mining up there is allowed to be used as a soil amendment and it is used predominately by peanut growers. Do you believe that the differences in the north Florida phosphogypsum and

the central Florida phosphogypsum are significant enough to allow

the use of one and ban the use of the other?

60

Mr. SUMNER. Do I think that?

Mr. PUTNAM. I will begin with you.

Mr. SUMNER. Absolutely no. I mean, as far as I am concerned,

at the rate you would use them as an ameliorant for peanuts, I do

not think you would ever be able to find any difference in the peanuts or the soil. I mean, it is far lower than the rates—we actually

tested the radiation, it was applied at rates that were of the order

of three and four times the rate that would be cumulatively applied

to peanuts.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. LLOYD. I do not think you would have any problem. EPA

based their ruling on the fact that north Florida has 10 picocuries

per gram of radium and central Florida has an average of 26, and

that is where their differences came from. But I am like Dr. Sumner, I cannot see where you would ever have enough

phosphogypsum used in agriculture for fertilization that it would

ever cause a problem. We did have some work that was done by

Dr. Jack Grexicle with the University of Florida using it on forage.

As I have mentioned, in Florida, if we could do what Jack thinks

we could, we could improve the quality of the grass to the point

that we could make a very definite positive economic effect for the

Florida farmer, because a cow uses grass that has the proper level

of sulphur more efficiently than it does some other grass. You have

demonstrated in parts of the world 20 percent weight gains just because of having proper sulphur fertilization. Jack is here today. If

you all would like to have him address you, he can give you all the

details.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Chambers.

Mr. CHAMBERS. Thank you, very much. It is difficult to add to

what my colleagues have said, but I would like to make one additional comment. As Mr. Lloyd indicated there is considerable detail

about the EPA’s risk assessment in the 1992 BID, including the

EPA’s own analysis of the effects of a biennial, every 2 years, application rate at 900 pounds per acre for 100 years. Without any other

changes, even leaving the 70 years, and without any other changes

to the risk assessment the EPA themselves indicate the lifetime

risk from the application of 900 pounds every 2 years is less than

1 in 10,000, well within their risk range. So even if you—even if

you doubled that, that would still be well within the range of 3 in

10,000. So I think simply without any other changes, even by

EPA’s own risk assessment, with the appropriate application rates

there should be no restriction in my opinion at least on the use of

phosphogypsum as an agricultural installment.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Shieh, do you wish to add anything?

Mr. SHIEH. No. I did not study on this subject, so I do not want

to make comments.

Mr. PUTNAM. The phosphogypsum from north Florida is allowed

by law to be used for agricultural purposes and the phosphogypsum

down here is not, and it is not allowed to be used for a roadbed

with the exception of the test roads that were built. Now this being

Florida, do you not believe, Mr. Lloyd, that the likelihood of building homes on top of previous agricultural land is greater than the

likelihood of building a home on a road bed?

61

Mr. LLOYD. Well, I have always had a problem in understanding

why anybody would build a house on a roadbed. [Laughter.]

Particularly in Florida. I do not know how to explain the logic.

That is all I am going to say. I would doubt—I just do not know

where this ever happens, but I doubt that it is going to happen in

Florida.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, I do not want to ask our scientists who are

very precise to speculate outside their field, but I think that the

facts would show that more homes are built in Florida every year

on former agricultural acreage than on former road beds.

Dr. Shieh, you suggest that the bacteria would use the sulphate

enriched phosphogypsum after oxygen is depleted and delay anaerobic decomposition. Does that have any beneficial effects on methane reduction in landfill?

Mr. SHIEH. Yes. When I say that is typical in an ordinary landfill, carbon dioxide would be generated first when there was oxygen

available, so that would be the byproduct of organic decomposition,

is generation of carbon dioxide. And over time, when the oxygen

has been depleted, the methane begins to degenerate and the carbon dioxide begins to convert to methane. So it is like a curve, from

there, to rise and decrease over time and methane from left to right

will increase over time. So there is intersection at a certain point.

What we discovered is that the intersection between the two extends beyond the time. That is an indication that the production

of carbon dioxide has extended, prolonged, as many more organics

have been decomposed. And in the meantime, the generation of

methane was delayed because as the more organics decomposed

slows up the actions.

So that is what I meant in the summary, that by introducing additional available sulfate in phosphogypsum, that would extend

and provide opportunity to have more organic matter decomposed

and that further would reduce the volume of the waste accumulated at a landfill. And that is why we say we might be able to extend the lifetime of the landfill.

Mr. PUTNAM. So increasing the efficiency of the decomposition.

Has your research given you any indication of how many more

years of service a municipality or local government may get out of

that landfill if they were able to use phosphogypsum as cover?

Mr. SHIEH. Just based on the laboratory results, for example, if

we compare the experimental reactor and the control reactor, in 3

months, we actually see more than 50 percent of organic matter

has been decomposed on the experiment with phosphogypsum. So

we say 50 percent more of the organic matter will be decomposed

from the landfill. So we can say that is two times that the time

could be extended. So assuming the site, the ordinary landfill, they

say is 25 years, so we might be proposing an assumption could extend to 50 years of time. That is one simple assumption. Of course,

as I say, if we were able to carry out a phase III field study, then

we would be able to come up with more conclusive comments.

Mr. PUTNAM. And you have a request pending before EPA to

your phase III study?

Mr. SHIEH. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. And when did you submit that request?

62

Mr. SHIEH. Immediately after completion of phase II, we submit

to FIPR and FIPR went through the typical reviewing process, tech

committee and the board of directors. They reviewed it and they actually approved the funding but because of the issue on the radioactivity, we have to wait for EPA to make a final green light. That

was in either 1999 or 2000, about 4 years ago.

Mr. PUTNAM. So you have been waiting 4 years for an answer to

your request for your phase III.

Mr. SHIEH. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. And were there adverse results in phase I or phase

II that might have led EPA to delay their decision?

Mr. SHIEH. I do not think so. Throughout the phase I and phase

II studies, except the issue on radioactivity, which we did not address because that was not a task of the study. On the other hand,

we looked at the possible production of hydrogen sulfite, because

when we introduce additional sulfur, theoretically we will consider

there is going to be more hydrogen sulfite produced at the site, and

theoretically that is possible.

Another possible adverse effect would be the generation of ammonia. Ammonia at the site would prohibit microbiological process.

And our study showed that the production of ammonia did not actually stop the microbiological process and the generation of H2S,

hydrogen sulfite, was really not on a register label comparing the

typical landfill site. And the reason we investigate and the reason

could be because of formation of metal sulfite. During the formation of hydrogen sulfite, the sulfur compound could create ways to

dissolve metal in the leachate and form the metal sulfite. Under

that scenario, the hydrogen sulfite would not be generated.

So we believe throughout the phase I and phase II studies, there

is no adverse effect that could make the EPA slow down the process, and personally, I have no idea why they cannot make a decision as quick as possible.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, we’ll have the opportunity to ask that

this afternoon.

Dr. Chambers, you have gone into some detail about the 1 in

10,000 versus 3 in 10,000 standard. Are there other examples that

you are aware of where they employ a 1 in 10,000 standard instead

of their typical 3 in 10,000?

Mr. CHAMBERS. I believe I pointed out another example in my

written testimony, which relates to the cleanup of a radioactive

contaminated site from the fuel cycle. EPA I believe has a 15

millirem per year dose limit and the NRC, for the same situation,

has a 25 millirem, and this has been much discussed. EPA equates

a 15 millirem dose to a risk of 3 in 10,000, but it is also very clear

that 15 millirems does not include the dose from radon. So in actual fact, if you added radon in, the equivalent risk level would be

much higher.

I do believe that in that context, EPA would require a demonstration that you did not exceed their 4 picocurie per liter limit

in addition to the 15 millirem.

Mr. PUTNAM. The 95th percentile application rate—and this is a

followup to what we just discussed—is the 1 in 10,000 the 95th

percentile, or is 3 in 10,000 the 95th percentile?

63

Mr. CHAMBERS. The 3 in 10,000 was the upper 95th percentile,

which was the 2,700 pounds we referred to previously. As I mentioned though, the EPA’s own analysis, using all their parameters

in the 1992 BID concluded that an application rate of 900 pounds

would produce a risk less than 1 in 10,000. So even if you doubled

that to 1,800 pounds a year, that would certainly be less than 2

in 10,000, still within the EPA’s risk range of 3 in 10,000.

So I think with the application rates that Dr. Sumner has indicated, that the EPA’s own 1992 analysis would demonstrate, even

with the conservative assumptions that they have made, that risk

to someone building a home on land to which you applied 900

pounds or even twice that, for 100 years, would be well within their

acceptable risk range.

Mr. PUTNAM. We have focused mostly on the road bed, the landfill and the agricultural uses with the additional potential for the

glass use. Dr. Shieh, you have done some work on the marine side

of things. Are there potentials in that arena as well?

Mr. SHIEH. In the marine environment, we actually had some

idea in terms of using the material for artificial reef in the ocean.

Our organization did not make this proposal. Louisiana State University with a similar group, they actually proposed to do that.

Maybe Mr. Lloyd can make a further comment on that.

But yes, based on our previous studies and experience, we agree

this material can be used for marine purpose, because the material

is good for stabilization, can turn into a solid substance without

any question at all. So if the radioactivity issue can be resolved, I

do see it as a good application in the marine environment.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Mr. Lloyd, did you want to add anything to that potential use?

Mr. LLOYD. Louisiana State has done a great deal of research on

using it in marine applications. They originally proposed using it

for oyster conch, which is the solid material on which the young

oyster attaches and grows from that point. It used to be you took

all the oyster shells and returned them to the ocean and the young

oysters could grow on the old oyster shells, but they have become

too valuable to be put in the ocean. So now, they do import into

Louisiana, granite out of Mexico. One of the problems in much of

the Gulf is you put down this material and it is on top of the soil

and over a period of time, it sinks down into the soil. So you no

longer have a site for oysters.

In addition, they want to use material of this nature to stop the

erosion of some of the shores along the Gulf. There is a great deal

of erosion into the marshes in fact all along the Gulf in Louisiana.

And a third application that they are working on is for artificial

reefs. They have developed formulas that would be economical and

compete with material that would come out of Mexico. They have

looked at the radionuclide situation to see what would likely happen if they had oysters growing or any other marine creatures

growing on this material and they have determined that there is

not a significant problem with any of the materials in

phosphogypsum going into the food chain.

But they are quite enthused, and in fact, I have a proposal on

my desk for some additional work right now from Louisiana State.

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Mr. PUTNAM. That is an interesting segue into what other States

are doing. Phosphate is not only mined in the United States either.

What are other nations doing with phosphogypsum, what are the

permitted uses in some of the other areas that also have phosphate

mining? Dr. Sumner, perhaps you could speak to that?

Mr. SUMNER. Well, being a native South African, I know the situation in South Africa. The phosphogypsum that is made there is

not radioactive, the source of phosphate is a different source and

does not contain anywhere near the level of radioactivity that the

Florida source does. And the gypsum is freely available and in fact,

the excess until recently—they might not have stopped yet, but

they are about to stop—was pumped out to sea. So there appears

to be no environmental hazards associated with that at all, because

it does not contain any radioactivity.

And may I add one——

Mr. PUTNAM. You may.

Mr. SUMNER [continuing]. New potential use, Mr. Chairman. Research has been carried out at the University of Georgia and is still

underway, but in a very minor pilot study, we have found that application of gypsum, and it was not phosphogypsum, but generic

gypsum, on the top of poultry litter in poultry houses, we can look

forward to the possibility that when that litter is applied on land,

that the application of gypsum will reduce the level of water soluble phosphorus which is a serious concern for the contamination of

surface waters. We have only done this in the lab, pilot study, still

going to be extended to the field, but that is another potential

source that will be considerable in magnitude throughout the country because of the chicken industry being quite ubiquitous.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Dr. Chambers, would you like to speak

to the international nature?

Mr. CHAMBERS. Yes, I would. First of all, I would like to say that

the EPA is well-regarded, as it should be, nationally and internationally, and quite often—I was in Brazil last year and Brazilians basically look to EPA for what can be done with

phosphogypsum in application there, again, for road construction.

So the EPA’s determinations are very important and they extend,

not just in Florida and throughout the United States, but they

have worldwide implications. And that was a road application I

was involved in.

In Canada, at the present time, there are a variety of uses being

looked at, one of which—and I am not an agronomist, so I apologize

here, but I know that a company north of Edmonton is working

with feedlots, cattle feedlot users, and the phosphogypsum is being

mixed on an experimental basis to reduce odors. And it apparently

is extremely successful. That could be a potentially important use.

There have been experimental studies done on using

phosphogypsum to reclaim in northern Alberta something called

the Tarsands, which is a large mining operation, there has been experimental work with regard to using phosphogypsum to help reclaim Tarsands, a very good, positive, positive thing, and it worked

very well on the experimental test.

So there is work underway. I cannot speak to the work that is

carrying on worldwide, but there do appear to be a number of poVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tentially beneficial uses, which have to be carefully thought out to

make sure we are not putting anyone at risk, as I said before.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lloyd, prior to 1989, before EPA redefined a

commercial product as a waste product that was therefore eligible

for regulation, what were the primary uses of the phosphogypsum

byproduct, and was it ever used in the construction of a building,

for example?

Mr. LLOYD. Could I answer that construction thing first? Not in

this country, but overseas at that same time, you were doing it in

Japan with phosphogypsum for building products, wallboard and

other structural members; in France, in Belgium; in Germany, at

times they have used this for making structural members as well

as wallboard. There was no real problem with that.

The biggest uses in U.S. history were agriculture. In California,

you had a phosphoric acid plant, there is no gypsum stack. The

phosphogypsum was used literally as it was manufactured. In the

middle of the United States, you have some phosphogypsum stacks,

most of those, there was some gypsum used for agriculture. At the

time of the EPA ban, the only commercial application on roads was

in Texas and at that time Mobil was actually building roads using

phosphogypsum. We were still experimenting and going in a different direction than what they did. They had a different technique

than what we were proposing to use.

There have been roads built all over Polk County where the mining companies were concerned, that they used phosphogypsum.

There are untold number of parking lots at churches and at places

like that, that were built with phosphogypsum because somebody

at church worked for the phosphate industry, they could get the

phosphogypsum free. You did have one company around here, one

paving company, that worked with phosphogypsum all the time on

this type of job.

That was about the uses of it.

Phosphogypsum had been used in other parts of the world, not

in this country, to recover sulfur to recycle it to make additional

sulfuric acid, particularly in South Africa.

But those are about the only uses I know of at that time.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is there a potential for use on unpaved roads, as

far as strength and durability and the amount that is spent by

local governments to maintain clay roads, unpaved roads in rural

parts, is phosphogypsum suitable for that purpose, assuming it

were permitted?

Mr. LLOYD. Structurally, yes. This is one of the things that we

got into in north Florida with Columbia County. The road that was

built up there is an asphalt paved road with a phosphogypsum

base. One of the things they wanted to do was to go into all of their

dirt, unpaved roads, and take and mix phosphogypsum into the soil

and then compact it. The work we have done with Dr. Chang indicated this road would stand up an awful lot better than what the

untreated road would. But that never went beyond that point.

When you do this, you will have to face the possibility of some

leachate of calcium and sulfur because gypsum is very slightly

soluble. We have not done any tests to be able to tell you what that

would amount to.

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Mr. PUTNAM. And do you know what the industry spends today

managing the existing phosphogypsum stacks?

Mr. LLOYD. I would not even want to guess.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does anyone else have a comment on the environmental or economic impact of managing the stacks?

[No response.]

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, with that, I would like to ask each of our first

panel of witnesses to make any closing comments that you wish to

make, whatever issues we were unable to get to or whatever you

wish could come out of this. This has been a process, very long in

the making. I can remember trying to work through this issue in

the legislature. Growing up in this area, watching these mountains

come up, it certainly is an important issue I think for us to resolve

for the environmental and economic health of central Florida. All

of you have devoted your professional lives to it, so at this time,

it is an open mic, beginning with Dr. Shieh and letting Mr. Lloyd

have the last word for our first hearing. Dr. Shieh.

Mr. SHIEH. OK. Well, as I said earlier, the result of the study has

supported to concept of use of phosphogypsum in landfill applications and if we were able to carry out the field study, by today we

should have some conclusive findings available to interested parties. If there were any adverse effects that needed to be addressed,

we would be able to identify. So my true belief is if we have something on the way and be able to provide solutions to an existing

problem, then I think we should go ahead and do it.

I want to emphasize that this approach will not solve overall our

phosphogypsum stack problem at all, but it will provide a solution

to help minimize the existing problem. So we are still just waiting

and waiting without any solution. I think we should go ahead and

make a decision to do it. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Dr. Shieh. Dr. Chambers.

Mr. CHAMBERS. Thank you very much. I will be brief, I think I

have said most of what I want to say.

I would just like to reiterate from my examination of EPA’s calculations and my own calculations that I believe the doses and the

risks to even the most exposed person are small on an absolute

basis and very small by comparison to the natural variation in dose

from background radiation. And truly in that context, of very little

concern.

I would fully support Dr. Shieh and I would like to see some of

these tests at least licensed so we can actually get and confirm one

model or the other. And I really do not understand the lengthy

process in licensing, and in my opinion, it would be unfortunate if

the theoretical concerns over radiological risks were to prevent uses

of phosphogypsum that would be of benefit to the people of the

State of Florida and indeed the country. Thank you.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Dr. Sumner.

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. Chairman, in summarizing, I would like to first

of all draw the committee’s attention to another use of

phosphogypsum. Currently I hold a patent which was based on

wallboard for making kitty litter out of gypsum. It is self-clumping,

odorless kitty litter. It is doing very well in the market based on

recycled wallboard. But if we were to use phosphogypsum, it would

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be even better than recycled wallboard. So that is another potential

use.

I would like to just finally say that the maximum rate in agriculture should be figured into the risk assessment calculations as

between 600 and 800 pounds of phosphogypsum per acre per year.

That would be the maximum rate that it could be used in agriculture.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. LLOYD. I guess I always find it interesting when you re-invent the wheel. Dr. Sumner has said something about using

phosphogypsum with chickens, with the waste from chickens. It

has got to be at least 10 years ago that I told the DEP in Florida

that was one of the ways to stop the odors from a chicken waste.

If you will go all the way back into the 1900’s, you will find the

same sort of thing was practiced, both on dairy farms and other

places, except they used what was then called normal super phosphate. But all of the gypsum, when you made normal super phosphate, ended up in the normal super phosphate. The gypsum was

what knocked down the odors, what stopped the phosphorus leaching, what did all of the other things.

So we are re-inventing something that we should have known a

long, long time ago.

I do think the landfill is one thing that ought to be put on a priority track. This is something that virtually every time you see

somebody trying to build a landfill, everybody starts hollering and

shouting do not build it near me. So one of the things that would

be very beneficial, also very cost-effective, would be to build landfills and use phosphogypsum.

The Institute looks at things from so-called applied research

point of view. One of the things in the area of phosphogypsum that

we look at all the time is the economic impact. So when we start

recommending one of these things, we are not only recommending

it because we think it is environmentally sound, we know it is economically practical, and that it will contribute to the Florida economy. So this is one of the reasons we support all of the things we

have done.

One thing I would mention, and I am sure that Dr. Chambers

will second me on this, every time we have been able to sit down

with EPA in a full scale scientific discussion, we have ended up

making some progress. But that is again—next to getting an exemption application, that is one of the hardest things to do that

you have ever tried to do. We have succeeded twice in the last 20

years. So if there would be some way that we could do this and let

some of the things that Dr. Sumner has seen, let some of the

things that Dr. Chambers has seen be presented to these people,

we could probably make some progress.

I think for the opportunity.

Mr. PUTNAM. I want to thank all of you before we adjourn this

first hearing. I want to tell you how much we appreciate the expert

testimony that you have given this subcommittee panel. It strongly

reinforces the premise that utilizing phosphogypsum can be safe

and less costly to taxpayers and as well as being environmentally

sustainable. I appreciate your willingness to be here, some of you

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have traveled a great distance to share your knowledge and experience and thoughts and in some cases frustrations, and I would like

to invite you to participate in the second hearing as well. So for

those of you whose schedules allow, I would like for you to remain

and participate in that hearing also.

In the event that there may be additional questions that we did

not have time for today or did not get to, the record will remain

open for 2 weeks for submitted questions and answers. And with

that, we will stand adjourned for 15 minutes and reconvene hearing two at 11:15. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

(69)

PHOSPHOGYPSUM: SHOULD WE JUST LET IT

GO TO WASTE: PART 2

MONDAY, MARCH 15, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY, INFORMATION POLICY, INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS AND THE CENSUS, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Bartow, FL.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:30 a.m., in the

West Wing, Southwest Florida Water Management District Headquarters, 170 Century Drive, Bartow, FL, Hon. Adam Putnam

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representative Putnam.

Staff present: Bob Dix, staff director; John Hambel, senior counsel; Ursula Wojciechowski, professional staff member; Juliana

French, clerk; and Matthew Joyner, district director.

Mr. PUTNAM. The Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy, Intergovernmental Relations and the Census will come to

order. This is officially the subcommittee’s second hearing on

phosphogypsum entitled, ‘‘Phosphogypsum: Should We Just Let It

Go To Waste?’’

In 1989, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promulgated

a rule determining that the commercial product of phosphogypsum

was waste product and banned its use for any purpose whatsoever.

Three years later, the EPA modified the rule to allow the use of

phosphogypsum from north Florida for agricultural purposes.

Since then, only one other rule has been promulgated. In 1999,

EPA raised the limit on the quantity of phosphogypsum that may

be used for indoor research and development from 700 pounds to

7,000 pounds and clarified sampling procedures for phosphogypsum

removed from stacks for other purposes. This was a step in the

right direction.

Testimony provided for our first hearing, which we just concluded, suggests that the use of phosphogypsum can be favorable

to farmers, cattlemen and taxpayers, particularly local governments, as a landfill cover, when used as a soil amendment, road

base and again, landfill additive. Additionally, concern was expressed that the long-term adverse environmental effects of leaving

phosphogypsum in stacks greatly exceeds any risks associated with

its use for any purposes researched.

A number of other issues came forward that we hope to explore

in this second hearing, including the delays in permitting for additional research and the inability to communicate effectively with

the policymakers.

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I would like to ask unanimous consent of the other subcommittee

members to reseat the witnesses from our first hearing, so that we

may benefit from a combined panel of expertise. Without objection,

so ordered.

And without delay, I welcome our witnesses and look forward to

your testimony.

As is the custom with the Government Reform Committee, all of

our witnesses are sworn in. For those witnesses who were sworn

in for the first panel, I would ask that you be sworn in again since

this is technically a new hearing. And again, for any of our witnesses, if you have someone with you who will provide supporting

testimony, slipping you notes, whispering in your ear, providing additional information for the benefit of the subcommittee, we would

ask that they rise and be sworn as well.

So with that, please rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. PUTNAM. I note for the record that all of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

Our first witness is Ms. Elizabeth A. Cotsworth, who is currently

the Office Director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office

of Radiation and Indoor Air. She provides national direction for

protecting people and the environment from harmful and avoidable

exposure to radiation as well as protective measures and guidance

for indoor air environments.

Prior to joining the ORIA, Ms. Cotsworth was the Office Director

of the Office of Solid Waste from 1997 to 2002, after holding a series of positions managing national hazardous and solid waste programs.

She entered the EPA as a management intern in 1973, she holds

a B.A. from Chatham College in History and an M.A. from the University of Virginia in Government and Foreign Affairs.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

STATEMENTS OF ELIZABETH COTSWORTH, DIRECTOR, OFFICE

OF RADIATION AND INDOOR AIR, OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; HARLAN KEATON, ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATOR, BUREAU

OF RADIATION CONTROL, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF

HEALTH; AND DICK ECKENROD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

TAMPA BAY ESTUARY

Ms. COTSWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to

appear here today. I will comment on the approach that the Environmental Protection Agency has implemented over the last 15

years to address the issue of protection of human health and the

environment with regard to phosphogypsum.

EPA has specifically regulated phosphogypsum since 1989 with

a national emissions standard for hazardous air pollutants called

NESHAPS, authorized under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act.

Radionuclides are listed there as a hazardous air pollutant. Radionuclides are a known cause of cancer and genetic damage. It is the

processing of raw phosphate ore that specifically concentrates

radionuclides into the phosphogypsum. Phosphogypsum contains

naturally occurring radiation, as well as its decay products such as

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radium-226 and radon. Due to its health risk, its radon gas emissions in particular are the target of our NESHAPS regulation.

We strive to provide maximum feasible protection against risks

to health from hazardous air pollutants, including radionuclides.

We do so by trying to limit exposures such that an individual’s lifetime excess cancer risk level is really no more than 1 in 10,000.

In our 1989 regulation, EPA specified stacks as the safest for

phosphogypsum management. It is the use of stacks that provide

appropriate risk protection with an ample margin of safety, as is

required by the Clean Air Act.

Originally, there were no provisions for allowing alternatives of

the material, but petitioners approached us afterwards for reconsideration. We determined, considering all of the information available on potential exposures and the associated risk, that certain

uses may be considered acceptable as long as those uses are restricted to limit the estimated lifetime risk to approximately 1 in

10,000.

We now allow three types of activities using phosphogypsum.

First, outdoor agricultural uses. For example, as a conditioner of

soils with high quantities of salt or low concentrations of calcium

or other nutrients, as long as the average radium-226 concentration

is less than 10 picocuries per gram. For example, peanut farmers

in Georgia apply phosphogypsum to their fields to strengthen peanut shells. Also, when several counties in North Carolina recently

found farmland soils to have high salinity, in part because of Hurricane Isabel.

Second, indoor research and development activities using up to

7,000 pounds of phosphogypsum; for example, to study the production of road base and building materials.

And third, other alternative uses that are approved by EPA on

a case-by-case basis.

Some activities do not meet the criteria for ensuring safety and

health protection on a national basis. For example, we found that

a generic national exemption for road building material could not

meet the risk criteria. This is because of radium-bearing dusts,

which are dispersed as the road surface degrades and radon emissions from the road itself. In addition, when road material is eventually removed, disposed or abandoned, additional exposures can

occur.

As we review and consider the safety of new potential

phosphogypsum uses, we work in partnership with our colleagues

in State government, such as the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. In addition to potential exposure, our review

carefully considers impacts on State legal authority and interests

such as groundwater protection from any alternative use.

We have received several petitions requesting EPA approval of

alternative uses for phosphogypsum. We are currently reviewing a

petition for its use as a landfill cover at a municipal solid waste

landfill in Brevard County, FL. We hope to have a response on the

completeness of this application in the next month to 6 weeks. We

are also simultaneously in the process of developing much needed

guidance to further and clearly explain the criteria discussed in our

regulations, specifically providing our sense of what information is

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required for a complete application that can then be evaluated for

its support of a publicly and scientifically defensible decision.

We stress the importance of addressing radiation risk and giving

confidence perhaps through monitoring, that other constituents in

the waste, for example heavy metals, do not pose additional environmental concerns. Additionally, we seek to identify the benefits

clearly associated with the alternative use and consistent with the

principles of radiation protection, assure that potential exposures

are justified and legitimate.

Managing phosphogypsum in stacks consistent with existing regulations is the best current management practice for most

phosphogypsum. But we continue to be open to consideration of

other beneficial and protected uses and remain supportive of research. Nevertheless, petitions submitted to the agency for such

uses must clearly and fully demonstrate that the alternative use

will be at least as protective as keeping the material in those

stacks.

This concludes my prepared statement. I will be happy to answer

any questions. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Cotsworth follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Ms. Cotsworth.

Our second witness for this hearing is Mr. Harlan Keaton. Mr.

Keaton is an environmental administrator for the Bureau of Radiation Control, a branch of the Florida Department of Health.

Mr. Keaton has been an employee of the Department for 33

years. The last 20 years, he has served as the administrator of the

statewide environmental radiation surveillance and radiological

emergency response programs. He has received the Hammer Team

Award from former Vice President Gore and the Board of Directors

Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of radiation protection from the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors, of which he is an associate member.

Additionally, he is a member and former two time president of

the Florida Chapter of the Health Physics Society. Mr. Keaton was

a member of the Technical Advisory Committee at the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research and Chaired the E–35 Marson Committee of the Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors.

Welcome to the subcommittee. You are recognized.

Mr. KEATON. I would like to describe today what the Department

of Health’s limited role is regarding naturally occurring radioactive

material in the environment, and specifically as it is associated

with the phosphate mining industry.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has primary responsibility for developing rules and national standards for handling

phosphogypsum and waste issues. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, under the authorization from EPA, also looks

closely at the proper disposal and beneficial use of this material.

As part of the Department of Health’s mission to promote and protect the health and safety of all residents of Florida, we have a limited role in the monitoring of phosphogypsum. Through our Bureau

of Radiation Control, we regulate the use of radiation and radioactive materials in medicine and industry. Please note, therefore,

that our Bureau is only looking at the radioactive issues associated

with phosphogypsum. We understand that there are also other environmental contaminants that can impact groundwater from the

disposal and use of phosphogypsum, such as sulfates, sodium, iron,

fluoride and trace heavy metals. These contaminants should also

be evaluated when making beneficial use decisions about this

waste.

The Bureau also has several environmental monitoring programs, including one that monitors the radiation levels on phosphate lands both before mining and after land reclamation. This

program has been going on since 1986. The data we have gathered

indicates a small—a very small—increase in radiation levels following reclamation of mine lands. However, please note that the premined and reclaimed lands are not identical in makeup to the

phosphogypsum, although there are many similarities, including

the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials.

Although the Department of Health does not regulate the disposal or the use of phosphogypsum and has not been directly involved in research regarding the potential uses and possible health

risks from the use of phosphogypsum, we do conduct some testing

in the mining areas. Our staff have also served as advisors to FIPR

to provide input on radiation related matters and advice on approVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00081 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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priate research areas. FIPR was established by the Florida Legislature to initiate, conduct or sponsor studies to minimize or rectify

any negative impact of phosphate mining and processing on the environment and improve the industry’s positive impact on the economy. FIPR is a public entity located within the Florida Department

of Education.

One aspect of our direct involvement in assessment of health

risks from naturally occurring radiation in the phosphate mining

areas is the risks from indoor radon levels. In an effort to control

indoor levels of radon, both the EPA and the State of Florida began

developing mitigation techniques to be used in existing buildings.

In 1978, the State also embarked on a project to develop radonresistant construction techniques for new homes built on reclaimed

phosphate lands. Standards for new construction and the mitigation of radon in existing construction were developed between 1989

and 1995 by the Department of Community Affairs. These standards, called the ‘‘Florida Standards for Radon-Resistant Construction’’ are also included as appendices of the Florida Building Code.

Again, although this effort is not directly related to the use of

phosphogypsum, it shows that research can be performed and efforts can be taken to mitigate the risks associated with naturally

occurring radioactive material and ensure that risk is at a safe

level.

Studies of phosphate workers have not shown abnormal cancer

rates and health reviews of populations living in previously mined

areas do not indicate an increase or excess of lung cancers. More

extensive research about the effects of exposure to phosphogypsum

is needed.

In conclusion, it also makes sense to aggressively research appropriate and safe uses for this plentiful product. In Florida alone, we

have approximately 1 billion tons in 24 stacks, with an annual

product of 30 million new tons of phosphogypsum. We are interested in any scientifically valid research that shows possible health

risks or lack of health risks associated with potential uses of

phosphogypsum. We believe this is a significant issue that we could

understand better through more research, research that can enable

us to determine appropriate uses for this material and what steps

are needed to protect the public’s health and the environment.

We believe that the current practice of stacking the

phosphogypsum has potential environmental and public health

risks, as evidenced by unintended releases and spills and the recent need to dispose of millions of gallons of gypsum and acidic

wastewater. Last year, the Federal Government granted the DEP

permission to dispose of the treated wastewater in the Gulf of Mexico. We therefore support and encourage aggressive research to determine safe uses of phosphogypsum, while protecting the health

and safety of the residents of Florida. Through this research, developments may allow for better roads, more efficient landfill covers,

additional needed sulfur for the soil, and construction materials

like safe glass, thereby providing a residual benefit to society.

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Keaton follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Keaton.

Our third witness for this hearing is Mr. Dick Eckenrod. Mr.

Eckenrod is the executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

Since joining the Tampa Bay Estuary Program in December

1990, Mr. Eckenrod has directed the development of an innovative

management approach for Tampa Bay that seeks to balance economic and environmental concerns.

Before coming to TBEP, he was part of an inter-disciplinary team

of scientists and engineers employed by the Southwest Florida

Water Management District.

From 1984 to 1987, he advised the Manatee County Commission

on natural resources issues as director of the Department of Land

and Natural Resources. His responsibilities included mining regulation and management of county-owned conservation areas. He

served the county as phosphate mining coordinator from 1980 to

1984.

He has also worked in the private sector as a specialist in water

quality management and environmental impact assessment and an

environmental engineer with various consulting firms.

A member of the Water Environment Federation, Mr. Eckenrod

serves on the Executive Steering Committee of the Agency on Bay

Management and a number of other environmental advisory and

coordinating committees in the Tampa Bay region.

Welcome to the subcommittee. And you are recognized.

Mr. ECKENROD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity

to address the subcommittee on the subject of beneficial uses of

phosphogypsum and some of the environmental issues associated

with those uses. I am Dick Eckenrod, executive director of the

Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

Tampa Bay is 1 of 28 estuaries of national significance participating in the NEP established pursuant to Section 320 of the Clean

Water Act. Tampa Bay was designated an NEP in 1990 by President George Bush and has subsequently developed a cleanup and

restoration plan for Tampa Bay. That plan is now being implemented by the program’s partners in the public and private sectors.

The Estuary Program is an independent special district of the

State of Florida, organized through an Interlocal Agreement under

the authority of Section 163.01 of the Florida statutes. The ninemember governing body of the Estuary Program, known as its Policy Board, consists of elected officials or senior administrators from

the cities of Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, the counties of

Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee along with U.S. EPA, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Southwest

Florida Water Management District.

The Estuary Program does not generally take positions on environmental permits or other regulatory matters, but does endeavor

to serve as a source of reliable information and unbiased advice to

all interested parties. It is in that spirit that I offer the following

comments.

Among the priority issues addressed by the Estuary Program are

controlling excessive nitrogen loading to Tampa Bay in order to

maintain water clarity and foster expansion of submerged aquatic

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tion of bay sediments and protecting relatively clean areas of the

bay from contamination; and developing a long-range dredged material management plan for the bay that will minimize adverse environmental impacts and maximize beneficial uses of dredged material.

Reusing or reclaiming liquids and solids that in the past were

considered waste materials and threats to the bay is a key element

of the Estuary Program’s strategy to achieve its water quality and

habitat restoration goals. The Program’s local government partners, for example, have made major strides toward nitrogen load

reduction by reclaiming domestic wastewater for irrigation of residential, commercial, agricultural and public properties. In addition

to reducing nitrogen loadings to the bay, reclaiming wastewater is

helping offset demands on ground and surface water supplies for

public use.

Another Estuary Program partner, the Corps of Engineers, is selectively using dredged material from ship-channel construction

and maintenance to create emergent wetland habitats, restore

eroded beaches and improve the quality of submerged habitats in

previously disturbed areas. Sediments once regarded as spoils or

wastes are now being transformed from environmental liabilities

into environmental benefits for Tampa Bay.

Managing the huge and ever-growing inventory of

phosphogypsum in Florida similarly offers opportunities as well as

challenges. Using all or a portion of the estimated 30 million tons

of phosphogypsum generated each year for safe and appropriate

uses could reduce the volume of contaminated process water that

will ultimately need to be disposed of. And, as the recent experience at the Piney Point facility in Manatee County has shown, reducing the volume of stored process water also reduces the potential magnitude of accidental releases. Options for beneficial use of

phosphogypsum should be actively pursued along with the research

needed to reasonably assure protection of public health and the environment.

In addition to potential impacts on nutrient loads, evaluation of

potential beneficial uses of phosphogypsum in the Tampa Bay watershed should take into account toxic contaminants that have been

documented at various levels of concern in Tampa Bay. An ecological and human risk assessment conducted for the Estuary Program

by Parsons Engineering Science in 1996 concluded that polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and specific metals—chromium, copper, mercury, nickel and silver—were

priority contaminants of concern in one or more segments of Tampa

Bay. Potential human health and environmental risks of contaminants of concern associated with phosphogypsum should also be

thoroughly assessed before specific uses are approved.

In summary, beneficial uses of materials formerly regarded as

wastes are now making important contributions to the recovery of

the Tampa Bay ecosystem. Potential beneficial uses of

phosphogypsum should be similarly explored, together with appropriate health and environmental risk assessments.

That concludes my prepared remarks.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eckenrod follows:]

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Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Eckenrod.

And before we go to questions, I overlooked a small item when

we were administering the oath. If the individuals who were sworn

in outside of our seated witnesses would please rise and identify

themselves and their title for the record. So everyone who was

sworn in outside our witnesses, if you would please come to the

front row and we will start on the left and identify by name and

position or title.

Mr. ROSNICK. My name is Reid Rosnick, I am an environmental

scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency. I am in the

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air in Washington, DC.

Mr. PUTNAM. If you could step forward, please, so that we can

get this for the record.

Mr. BUTTON. My name is Rick Button, I am a health physicist

with the EPA, Region IV in Atlanta, GA with the Quantitative

Technical Support Section.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Mr. BURKEE. I am Brian Burkee, I am a research director with

the Florida Institute of Phosphate Research.

Mr. DEGROVE. I am Bruce DeGrove, I am director of regulatory

affairs for the Florida Phosphate Council in Tallahassee.

Mr. POSEY. I am Stan Posey, manager of environmental affairs

for PTS Phosphate at White Springs.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much, and we will begin with our

questions.

Ms. Cotsworth, your testimony—you said that the concern of the

EPA was to make sure that any increased exposure was justified

and legitimate. Did anything that was presented in hearing one

lead you to believe that there is a scientific basis for changing the

treatment of phosphogypsum from being a waste product to being

a commercial product?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We would be happy to sit down with the members of that panel to discuss specifically the points that they made,

to work with them to determine if there is sufficient early information that would support a petition to the agency under the regulatory authority that I cited, and to work with them, again, in

terms of what we require for a complete evaluation and what we

would require in order to be able to thoroughly assess and make

again a publicly defensible and scientifically defensible conclusion

or decision.

Mr. PUTNAM. So they have your commitment then that you and

your people will meet with them and their people to do this?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We would be glad to. I know there have been

frustrations, I think on both sides, but we certainly would be willing to sit down and be as clear and specific and informative as we

can be.

Mr. PUTNAM. Until 1989, phosphogypsum was treated as any

other item of commerce and sold for agriculture and was used locally, as was discussed in the first hearing, for any number of construction projects. What was the basis for the shift in policy from

an item—where an item of commerce was suddenly treated as a

waste product and subject to regulation?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We were implementing the requirements of the

Clean Air Act to control the risks of hazardous air pollutants, and

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our source controls were established as the legislation requires us

to do consistent with all hazardous air pollutants. And in the 1989

rulemaking, we advised the public that we had found a basis to require management in stacks because of the potential for it to be incorporated into other products and be defused throughout the country such that we would be unable to ensure that the rate on emissions did not present an unreasonable risk. That was the basis.

Mr. PUTNAM. And an unreasonable risk in your opinion would be

one that exceeds 1 in 10,000?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Generally yes, the risk range that we used consistently for Clean Air Act regulatory decisions is between 10 to the

minus 6 which is one in a million risk to the 1 in 10,000 number

generally. And that 1 in 10,000 is also a risk level that we use in

many other of our regulatory programs.

Mr. PUTNAM. The risk analysis that you used employed an assumption of 70-year residency for occupants of the hypothetical

home. That is a value that is not supported by any available data

and shorter residency times are used by your agency in other risk

calculations. So why was this item chosen for the 70-year residency

risk calculation?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The 70-year residency is actually, again, consistent with the assumption that we use in risk analyses for all of

our Clean Air Act rulemakings and for many of our other

rulemakings and regulatory activities. There are some decisions

where a 30-year residence time is included but for the regulatory

purposes, we generally use a 70-year residence time. And we have

data that suggests that it is not inappropriate to use for

phosphogypsum and farmer residence time.

Mr. PUTNAM. You have studies that suggest that it is not inappropriate to use the 70—what studies were done to justify that action?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We have conducted studies, I believe that were

associated with the 1992 and possibly the 1989 regulatory actions.

I would be happy to go back and research and submit those particular studies and statements for the record.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, I am just trying—the Federal Register in

1989 does not specify a reason for the ban, so I think it is important to know what action—what studies precipitated that action.

And Dr. Chambers, in the first hearing, stated that your own handbook uses a 30-year risk model. Could you explain that difference?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I believe that the handbook that is being referred to is used in regard to cleanup decisions associated with our

so-called Superfund program. I cannot absolutely say for sure, but

I believe that is the reference. But in terms of most of our regulatory decisions, including those under the Clean Air Act, we do

use a 70-year timeframe.

Mr. PUTNAM. For actions under the Clean Air Act, you use the

70-year timeframe. And is that directed by law or is that an internal rule?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I believe it is an internal approach, I cannot

state with certainty. I will be glad to again check into that and get

back to the staff.

Mr. PUTNAM. Why would there be such a dramatic risk calculation for a Superfund site which can be anywhere in a community

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and, you know, through recent legislation on brown fields and everything else, subject to other uses—why would there be such a

dramatically different risk calculation for that than there is for

Clean Air Act compliance?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Well, the difference is largely a cleanup, a remedial situation dealing with contaminants that already exist in

the environment as opposed to rulemaking, national generic level

rulemaking, which are intended to be protective and preventative

in nature.

Mr. PUTNAM. The calculations that you did use averaged the

amounts of phosphogypsum used for soil treatment in California

and in fertilization in Georgia and arrived at an annual application

rate of 1,350 pounds per acre per year. Is there a practical basis

for that application rate that you all used? Are you aware of any

farmer who uses that much phosphogypsum?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The determination was based on data and information that was submitted to the agency and that is included in

our background information document. And again, we were developing a national regulation, which is generic in scope and application rates across the country do vary, according to crop type, soil

conditions, purpose of the application. And for us to be generally

conservative and take into account the possibility of reasonable

worst case exposure assumptions, we did use data and information

provided from California in determining the application rates.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is there not an ability for you—you referred to the

general application rate in a general generic rule to be applied nationwide. Is there not a basis for you to develop or promulgate a

regional rule that would apply to sodic soils in the western United

States and a different one that would apply to the treatments that

are used in the southeastern United States, just as other aspects

of EPA promulgate different labels for different crops in different

regions?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It is possible; however, it becomes very difficult

to implement, difficult to enforce and it transfers, in large part, the

burden of implementation to the farmers and the small agribusinesses that would then have to spend the time and effort to be

careful in regard to the use of a product as opposed to us regulating the content from the start.

Mr. PUTNAM. I appreciate your sympathy for the farmer and

small business, but EPA has never hesitated to transfer that burden in the past.

The soil treatment and fertilization, two unrelated practices, why

were those two unrelated practices used to justify the ban for fertilization? Again, would it not be reasonable to have a rule for fertilization and a rule for soil treatment?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Again, as I just indicated, the agency concluded

that in order to provide protection for the possible most reasonable

worst case scenario, that it was not appropriate to make that distinction.

Mr. PUTNAM. That is a fairly subjective thing. How do you know

what a reasonable worst case scenario is? I mean, if you use this

high concentration for sodic soils but you only do it once and then

you are done for decades, if not forever, and then in the case of the

peanut growers, they are using it every third year, is it the judgVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00093 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment of EPA’s scientist, is it peer reviewed? How do you come

about determining a reasonable worst case scenario?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It is based on a risk assessment that is conducted according to the risk methodology that is in general use

across EPA. There may have been some changes in methodology

improvements over time since the 1989 and 1992 rulemakings;

however, the risk assessments that were conducted at that time

were consistent with all of the agency’s practices and policies regarding risk assessment, including the scenarios, media transfers

and how to use our data. Those risk assessments are normally, as

with all of our background documents, are part of the public docket

that is associated with public comment and notice rulemaking.

They should have been available for public review at the time of

the issuance of both the proposed and the final regulations.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, let us come back to Florida for a second.

What is the basis for banning north Florida phosphogypsum for

roads but not for agricultural purposes when the road bed use has

a lower risk than agricultural use? In other words, you have said

it is OK to spread it on the fields that in a rapidly urbanizing State

have a high risk of being homes in our lifetime, but banned it from

a road bed usage, which is probably—which is highly unlikely in

this State and most any other. What is the basis for that?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Well, we did evaluate, as I said, generically

road building in the 1994 regulation and we did find that certain

exposures would lead to excess cancer rates, in excess of the risk

range that we specified, and that in fact road bed usage did have

a higher risk than actually agricultural usage.

Mr. PUTNAM. What roads were you testing to make that determination, what tests, what studies indicated that the cancer rate—

the risk rate would be greater?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The studies are detailed in our 1992 background information document. I apologize, I cannot personally

speak to the specific studies that are accounted for here.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does your colleague know?

VOICE. No, I am sorry, I do not. I would have to look through the

actual background information.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, could you do that while we move on and we

will come back to you.

Mr. Lloyd, do you know what studies the EPA used for their

1994 rule?

Mr. LLOYD. Some of the things that are mentioned we have never

been able to find in the BID documents, so I do not know. We

would be interested in finding the data that we requested in 1995

as to how they did the risk assessments for the 1992 rule. We have

never been able to get the documents to show what the actual calculations were and it would be appreciated if we could get them.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is that type of document available to the public,

Ms. Cotsworth?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The public record for that rulemaking should

still be available. What I cannot personally attest to is whether the

documents or calculations that were just referred to are in that

rulemaking record. Again, we do have high standards for the documentation and technical support documents to be included in our

public docket and in our—and referenced in our preambles to our

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regulations. I apologize that, not having been with that office when

the 1989 and 1992 regulations were promulgated, and at this point

I have not seen those entire rulemaking dockets to be able to say

specifically whether what was just alluded to is there, but I would

certainly hope so.

Mr. PUTNAM. I would hope so too and I will make this my official

request for those records and supporting documents and working

papers as well, and we look forward to receiving those.

Why does EPA make atypical assumptions when calculating risk

assessments for phosphogypsum in the 1992 ruling that are as unreasonable as those used in the 1989 rule that require correction

only after a successful challenge?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Again, the regulatory process allows for public

input, public participation, particularly in regard to the way our

proposed and then final regulations are crafted, giving people the

opportunity to comment on the technical information upon which

our decisions are based. Certainly the additional input that was received by the agency post-1989 was found to be useful for making

subsequent regulatory modifications and we always remain open to

new information, new data for consideration as to whether we need

to improve or change our regulations, or in this case, because we

have a petition process, to be able to use the petition process to exercise regulatory flexibility.

Mr. PUTNAM. And how long does that regulatory flexibility usually take to work its way through the process?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It probably takes longer than the petitioners

here would have liked. And we have not approved any petition to

date. In part, that is probably due to change over in our staff and

lack of clarity for the petitioners as to what we really need in a petition application. In some part, it is also due to the amount of time

that it has taken for petitioners to respond to our data requests

and our requests for more analyses.

Mr. PUTNAM. And do you know how long it took them to respond

to your requests, the petitioners? How long did it take for them to

respond to your requests for additional information?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I believe in some cases there has never been a

response and in some cases, it has taken many months.

Mr. PUTNAM. And with regard to Dr. Shieh’s request for a permit

to move forward with phase III, that was a 4-year and still counting pending request—it seems to me this is unnecessarily adversarial. You have a group of credentialed, published, highly regarded

scientists pursuing a line of research. In other words, they are

seekers of information, of knowledge, of hopefully a solution to

what we believe is a problem in the stacks. It would seem to me

that at bare minimum for research purposes, the EPA would embrace that type of search for knowledge. Recognizing your own limitations as an agency and personnel constraints and funding constraints and everything else and the myriad of environmental

issues you have to deal with, it would seem that when you have

a group like this, and undoubtedly they are not the only ones, that

that would be something that you would really embrace and join

hands and move forward to solve an environmental problem.

I mean, I think everyone would admit that is not really how it

is. I mean it has become this adversarial issue for years. I mean

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it predates me but as recently as 5 years ago in the legislature

when we tried to work through this. You can never find anybody

to give you an answer, you can never find anybody that seems really interested in working to make it work. And that is the rub, that

is the real frustrating part here.

We have all kinds of questions here about why things went the

way they did and why they have not been answered and why we

are waiting 4 years just to be able to dig a plot to research landfill

material. I mean we are not talking about cancer drugs here, we

are not talking about distributing something to every mouth in

America, we are talking about allowing research to go forward. And

for some reason, whether it was you or your predecessor or the

agency’s culture, there is this adversarial issue. Help me understand that or please convince me that is not the case.

Ms. COTSWORTH. I agree, it has been adversarial and what I believe and I believe the new administrator wants to make sure is

that there is collaboration and honest dialog. You talked about the

4-years for review of Dr. Shieh’s petition. Last June, members of

my staff came here and had a meeting and basically indicated that

what we had already in hand did not discuss the very issue of most

concern to us, which was radioactivity. We have had a resubmission, additional information since December of last year, and we

are actively reviewing that petition right now and at the same time

trying to develop useful and clear guidance for all the petitioners

in regard to what we expect relatively to again a complete application and one that will then support a final and clear decision.

I too believe that the process should be finite in terms of time,

it should be transparent for everyone, the petitioners as well as

others, including the general public who may have an interest, and

that a decision is rendered. It may not necessarily be the decision

that someone wants but I want to be able to give someone a final

yes or no answer on the petition and to be able to tell them clearly

why it was the answer that it was, so that they can understand

and that we can again defend it in the public view and it will withstand scientific and technical challenge.

Mr. PUTNAM. There clearly are a lot of reasons why this has become a problem. But a change of administration is not one. When

you look at the EPA and the number of employees that change

from administration to administration, no matter who the President or the Administrator is, it is minimal. I mean this is a professional staff issue. The political appointees are not running road

tests, road bed tests on radium-226. Regardless of who the Administrator is or who is in the White House, there ought to be some

cultural openness to research and the search for answers.

Prior to EPA’s 1989 rule banning the use of phosphogypsum,

EPA conducted public hearings on whether or not to put layers of

soil on top of the stacks to reduce the radon emanation that might

be harmful to the people living in the vicinity of the stacks. Those

public hearings concluded that the risks did not justify that action.

Now if the risk of having a multi-million ton concentration of

phosphogypsum did not justify sprinkling top soil over it to reduce

radon emanations, why would the risks exist in sprinkling

phosphogypsum in central Florida agricultural fields or in building

a road bed out of it?

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Ms. COTSWORTH. I am not personally aware of the public meetings or hearings to which you refer. So I am unable to comment

on that. But certainly as we consider additional uses, we have to

look at a variety of scenarios and pathways through which people

are exposed. And the presence of phosphogypsum in roads and agriculture can sometimes present different exposures than stack

management and each one needs to be evaluated accordingly and

appropriately.

Mr. PUTNAM. But you said radioactivity is the real issue. I mean

that’s really the issue.

Ms. COTSWORTH. Right.

Mr. PUTNAM. And so 40 million tons stacked, to me just common

sense would say that radioactivity would be a greater issue in that

concentrated form at that scale—that has to be a larger issue than

when it is evenly spread in a road bed or on an agricultural field.

And these are from the public hearings that your agency had prior

to the 1989 rule.

Ms. COTSWORTH. Again, I am just not familiar with those public

hearings and the situation that is being described, but again, it is

looking at different exposure scenarios and certain management

controls that are in place relative to the stacks that would not be

present in other uses.

Mr. PUTNAM. You were provided these questions in advance of

this hearing.

Ms. COTSWORTH. That is right, and between Friday afternoon

and today, I could not find any reference to the hearings that were

mentioned.

VOICE. Congressman, I could provide some light on that question.

Mr. PUTNAM. Please. Speak into the mic, come forward please

and speak into the mic.

Mr. BUTTON. Richard Button. With regard to the soil on top of

the stack, what we found is that on a stack, due to weight and volume, it creates its own cap, so putting soil on top of a stack does

not reduce the radon emissions any more. And we find that the

radon emissions tend to be greater on the side where the cap is

broken up, which would explain why if you spread it out on farmland, the radon emissions would be higher than or equal to what

they would on top of the stack.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

When did EPA last visit the phosphogypsum stacks to get a

read?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I believe staff from my office, during their visit

in June of last year, actually visited a stack.

Mr. PUTNAM. And did you test their level of radiation?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It was not a compliance visit or any kind of enforcement visit, it was for the purpose of information sharing relative to the petition process and getting a better understanding

and appreciation of the problem and the issue.

Mr. PUTNAM. And as part of that information sharing, did you all

test the stack?

Ms. COTSWORTH. No, not that I am aware of.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lloyd, do you know if they tested the stack

while they were here?

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Mr. LLOYD. The stacks were last tested prior to 1989, as Rick can

attest to.

Mr. PUTNAM. And not since then?

Mr. LLOYD. Not at all that I know of.

Mr. PUTNAM. If radioactivity is the issue, and we have 24 stacks

around the State, it is not a big enough issue to have an ongoing

radiation testing program?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The NESHAPS that I referred to has been delegated to the State of Florida and I believe any monitoring would

be conducted by the State. We have not—and I will look to Dick

for some confirmation on this, I do not believe we, EPA, have done

any oversight inspection or testing.

Mr. BUTTON. That is correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. OK. You are from the air quality/radiation piece of

EPA, is that correct?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Yes, I am.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is there another piece of your agency that deals

perhaps with water quality that is concerned about the concentration of these stacks and the Piney Point incident and the potential

ecological hazard that stacking phosphogypsum presents?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I think it is safe to say yes, we are all concerned about what happened last year at Piney Point.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, but it seems to me that your piece of the EPA

has determined that—at least in 1989, you determined that it is

safer to stack it up than it is to spread it out. But is there another

office in another wing of Atlanta’s regional headquarters or some

place in Washington where the water quality people are saying we

have a real problem here. We have hundreds of millions of gallons

of acidic water building up in these stacks that we might need to

do something about. Is there coordination within EPA between air

quality and water quality as it relates to gyp stacks?

Ms. COTSWORTH. There is within the regional office, which was

the group that dealt primarily with the Piney Point situation. I

know Mr. Button here was involved as well as our Region IV emergency response personnel. I have not been approached by the EPA

water office in regard to phosphogypsum during the time that I

have been office director. But I would certainly not only coordinate

with other State and appropriate agencies in regard to a

phosphogypsum use application, but I would have to consult with

my counterparts across EPA in terms of any concerns or issues

that would arise that deal with their statutory responsibilities and

the programs that they implement.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Button, could you please come back to the

microphone, since you were part of the emergency response to gyp

stack management that occurred last summer?

Are you aware of a multi-disciplinary approach to managing

these?

Mr. BUTTON. Yes, when Superfund emergency response in Region

IV Atlanta, they were asked by the State of Florida to provide assistance and when they found that phosphate plant had some low

level radiation, I met with them and talked with them and gave

them some input on the radiation risk associated with it, and also

talked to their water people and everybody else that could provide

input for their response.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Are you aware of any reports that the water people,

as you put them, any conclusions that they arrived at that perhaps

managing the stacks as we do today might not be the best approach from a water quality perspective?

Mr. BUTTON. No, I am not, but the Superfund emergency response people may be. I am not aware of that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Could you please, when you get back to the office,

see if that information exists? I would like to make that official information request.

Mr. BUTTON. Yes, I can do that.

Mr. PUTNAM. So we can review their conclusions as it relates to

their opinion of our management of phosphogypsum stacks.

Mr. BUTTON. Well, they officially made a decision to dump the

water into the bay, so I’m sure there is some documentation to support that. So yes, I can followup on that.

Mr. PUTNAM. And assuming another rainy season, we might have

to dump some more into the bay. So it becomes an ongoing water

quality environmental hazard that does not appear as being necessarily shared with the air quality folks. Thank you.

Mr. Keaton, in your testimony, you mentioned that the State of

Florida developed standards for radon resistant construction. Could

you describe those in some detail and tell us how or if they might

foil the 70-year residency assumptions that EPA used in their risk

calculation?

Mr. KEATON. Let me caveat that by saying there was a lot of

work going on at the time. The Florida Institute of Phosphate Research had a program where they were doing mitigation in homes,

they actually built some homes. Florida and the Environmental

Protection Agency at that time were developing mitigation techniques and eventually that turned into a project where new construction was to be used on reclaimed phosphate lands.

What basically these construction techniques do is prevent

radon—or at least reduce it significantly from getting into the

home and also lowering through the slab and elevated crawl space,

lowering the gamma levels that could possibly be in a home. So

these techniques would be very effective if you were to build a

home on phosphogypsum or reclaimed phosphate lands.

Mr. PUTNAM. Does the Department of Health conduct their own

risk calculations in the everyday work of your oversight of health

and safety issues for the State?

Mr. KEATON. We do when there is an emergency situation, when

we see major problems. There has been a lot of work that has already been done in this area, especially on the workers at the phosphate mines. We have looked at areas like the Cornet, I am sure

you are familiar with that, we have also looked at Stouffer Chemical, these areas, and have not yet to date found elevated levels.

As far as an area-wide study on all the people in this area; no,

that has not been done. But by that same token, we have not seen

any levels that would indicate that would necessarily need to be

done.

Mr. PUTNAM. But could you please refresh my memory on what

you found in your health studies of the phosphate workers in populations living in the previously mined areas?

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Mr. KEATON. They did not show any increase in lung cancers or

any health effects. As a matter of fact, there were many studies

done, there was—I have them here—I mean I do not have the studies, but I have the information, if you would like to have it.

Mr. PUTNAM. We would. Could you please, if you would, tell us

if you believe the differences in the north and central Florida

phosphogypsums are significant enough to allow the use of one and

ban the use of the other?

Mr. KEATON. Well, there is a radiological difference, but we are

looking at very low levels of radioactivity. The Environmental Protection Agency has done risk assessment on that and these are

models. OK? You put information in, you get information out. If

you look at these models and you change the parameters that you

use, it would seem that from what we have seen from the SENES

reports that, no, there may not be a problem.

What we would like to see is the EPA and the FIPR come together on this and make decisions on what uses and what risks are

going to be acceptable and we can go from there.

Mr. PUTNAM. You know, let me perhaps go to one of our scientists. Again, help us understand the difference between the north

Florida and central Florida in terms of the number of picocuries

and what that really means in the context of atmospheric radiation

or just inherent radiation that exists today. Give us some context

for that, if you would.

Mr. CHAMBERS. I will try first. I am sure Mr. Lloyd or others will

correct me.

I believe north Florida has a radium content in the order of 10

picocuries per gram and central Florida phosphate perhaps might

be 26–27, something like that. So that is about two and a half

times the radium-226 content. All other factors being equal, the

rate of release of radon would be proportional to the concentration

of radium-226. And that is why it is so important in looking at

these risk assessments, whether it is EPA’s or ours, to be reasonably conservative but not unrealistic or not unreasonable. And I

think it was quite clear from Dr. Sumner’s discussion this morning

that there is a practical upper limit on the rate at which

phosphogypsum might be applied, for example, to a farmer’s field.

And that is, for example, a ratio of 2,700 to 900, 2,700 being the

upper 95 percentile as determined by EPA. That is larger than the

difference in the radium-226 content.

So basically with any reasonable application rate and even following EPA’s methodology, there should be no practical difference

in the risk that would result from radium and radon.

Mr. PUTNAM. And Mr. Lloyd, do you or anyone with you have

any additional information on that as it relates to how that compares to other activities that might lead to radiation exposure?

Mr. CHAMBERS. I will come back to that as well. I do not have

my litany of comparisons in front of me. I think I said earlier that

at my age, I have a risk of about one in a million dying from natural causes during this hearing. In any event, if you look at EPA’s

risk range of 1 in 10,000 lifetime, that is approximately equivalent

to one in a million risk per year. So my 1 hour or 2 hours here from

natural causes would be a risk of one to two in a million of passing

away from natural cause during this hearing.

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Similarly, if I was a smoker, and I am happy I am not, smoking

somewhere between one and two cigarettes, that is all it takes,

would be the kind of risk that you would get, that would result in

a risk of one in a million. Similarly, if I was flying from Tampa to

Colorado to go skiing and return, that kind of flight would incur

an extra radiation risk in the order of one in a million. Here, the

extra radiation is from outer space from cosmic rays, because as

you go up in the air, higher in the altitude, the protection from the

air from outer space cosmic rays is less. So basically a risk of one

in a million is about the same as my chances of dying, it is about

the same as a return flight from Tampa to Denver, it is about the

same as smoking a cigarette or a cigarette and a half.

Mr. PUTNAM. A cigarette per year?

Mr. CHAMBERS. No, one cigarette.

Mr. PUTNAM. In your lifetime.

Mr. CHAMBERS. That is a risk of one in a million.

Mr. PUTNAM. Let me see if I can shuck the corn a little bit here.

[Laughter.]

Are you saying that if you did stay in a house 18 hours a day,

7 days a week for 70 years and if you employ this model that EPA

has constructed for phosphogypsum, even if you did do those

things, it is the equivalent exposure to radiation as flying from

here to Colorado to go snow skiing?

Mr. CHAMBERS. Plus or minus the uncertainties, I believe that is

about correct.

Mr. PUTNAM. So even if you do employ their maximum risk

model, you are still talking about negligible risk compared to every

other normal activity.

Mr. CHAMBERS. Yes. As I indicated earlier, I feel that yes, there

is a risk, it is a theoretical risk, but to me it is incredibly small

and from my perspective, of no consequence because you are looking at an annual risk of about one in a million which converts to

a lifetime risk of 1 in 10,000 and that is what we are regulating

this industry to.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Cotsworth, is that the typical benchmark that

you all use in promulgating rules?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Basically our decision is consistent with the approach that the agency takes in regard to its regulation. Our philosophy is that regardless of the background and the risks that already exist, that we are required to take action to prevent additive

additional risk over and above what people are already exposed to.

Mr. PUTNAM. Additive risk——

Ms. COTSWORTH. Any incremental risk that is within our purview, we try to control.

Mr. PUTNAM. Any additive risk above 1 in 10,000, greater than

1 in 10,000, or any additive risk?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Any additive risk. We look at an excess cancer

rate of 1 in 10,000 as the basis for possibly regulating.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is that an internal decision or is that set by law?

Ms. COTSWORTH. In regard to, again, radionuclides as a hazardous air pollutant, there is a long history regarding the Clean Air

Act implementation, the so-called benzene rule, court decisions that

indicate that the agency is appropriate to be looking at excess risk

in terms of 10 to the minus 6 and 10 to the minus 4 range and

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applying a margin of safety. So that has been defended both in

court and in other regulatory decisions.

Mr. PUTNAM. But you just said that you all attempt to control

any additive risk, even I assume lesser than that 10 to the minus

6.

Ms. COTSWORTH. Right, we actually look at a range of one in a

million and very often we back off from that to the 1 times 10 to

the minus 4. In some cases, 3 times 10 to the minus 4. It’s not an

absolute hard line but it is generally 1 times 10 to the minus 4 in

our regulatory decisions.

Mr. PUTNAM. I am sorry, go ahead.

Ms. COTSWORTH. No, that is fine.

Mr. PUTNAM. Do you believe that their research is correct, that

their findings on the risk are what they say they are?

Ms. COTSWORTH. I would like to have the opportunity to look at

it more thoroughly and look at the assumptions that were used,

again, the scenarios to see how the studies and the research do

compare against the risk assessment methodology that we used. It

sounds intriguing.

Mr. PUTNAM. And if that is the case—well, I think they are dying

to share it with you. But if it is correct, would that be the basis

for changing the rule—would that be an adequate basis for changing the rule? Is their research adequate or do you have to go back

to EPA and duplicate their research or do you accept them as accredited, certified, legitimate researchers?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We would—I would not be able to say yes, we

would revisit the regulations based on what I have heard today.

We do not at this point have what we consider to be sufficient and

compelling reproducible data and information that suggests the

need to completely overhaul the regulation. We are open to receiving data and information and assessing whether it is sufficient and

adequate. We also encourage people to use the petition process that

we have already set up. Since the regulation development process

in the agency probably takes at least 5 years, the fact that we have

an administrative option that is built into the current regulations,

the agency has a preference, as I believe I stated before, for using

the administrative procedures that are available to provide the

flexibility and the relief on a more site-specific or region-specific,

use-specific basis. And therefore not undergoing the very long laborious regulatory change process over which there is no control as

to the outcome.

Mr. PUTNAM. Do you have a list of the information that they

have not submitted or that you believe is insufficient, that they

could check off. These are the things that EPA definitively says

they must have? Do you have that?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We have correspondence with certain individuals in the record. We are working at the same time as we are

processing the current petition, Mr. Rosnick, who is behind me, is

the staff person assigned to that, and he is also, by virtue of reviewing that petition, trying to develop a quick, easy-to-use, simple

guidance, probably no more than a fact sheet, that can more readily and clearly indicate what are the requirements that we have

for, again, a complete application, which then can be thoroughly

evaluated.

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Mr. PUTNAM. Is the definition of a complete application a moving

target? Is that what I am hearing you say, that you are trying to

put together a fact sheet, but as of now, nobody really knows what

meets your definition of complete?

Ms. COTSWORTH. The requirements that are in the regulations

are very limited in their definition. We are trying to provide the

definitiveness that the petitioners need, and again, based on our

experience with working with the petitioners, they do need additional guidance from us as to what are the elements of the petition

that are of most concern to us. As we indicated last June when we

were here, we really want to know about the radioactive content

and the issues related to that. We want to see if there is possibly

any monitoring information that could be used to evaluate whether

there are any other environmental hazards posed by the activity,

the use or the research.

I agree it would be ideal if that guidance had been prepared

some time ago. I cannot tell you why specifically it has not been,

but it is important enough for me and my management team in the

Office of Radiation and Indoor Air to say that this year, we want

to provide our petitioners with good guidance so that they can develop a petition that is as quickly as possible able to be declared

complete and then is ripe for that technical evaluation. And we

commit to working and being in dialog with the petitioners, so

again, they can clearly understand, as opposed to hearing it from,

you know, a letter subsequently in terms of additional needs that

still need to be met.

Mr. PUTNAM. So you certify that their application is complete and

then you have to go evaluate it on its technical merits?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. And where would you do that analysis? You don’t

have phosphogypsum in your office in Atlanta, you don’t have it on

Pennsylvania Avenue, so what laboratory does that occur in?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It may or may not occur in a laboratory. A lot

of the review would be actually, again, evaluating and reviewing

the documentation and the information that has been submitted on

paper. We probably would want to come and visit with the petitioners and see some of the situations that they are talking about, we

would ask what kind of monitoring data they have and can make

readily available to us, what kind of monitoring information perhaps the State regulatory authorities might have. But we do not

necessarily use a lab, but we will use, again, risk assessment

methodologies——

Mr. PUTNAM. So if you certify it as complete and after visiting

with the petitioners, it would be their research that you accepted

after some review—if you certified it as complete and you made

that determination, you would not recreate the wheel, you would

work off of the research that has been done in Florida, is that what

I am hearing you say?

Ms. COTSWORTH. That is right. And we might suggest some—as

I believe was alluded to earlier, perhaps some controls, institutional controls, that might, in conjunction with the data and the

science and the information, serve to again ensure that there is no

unacceptable risk, that the risk is equivalent to the risk that the

stacks pose right now, and go into our decisionmaking.

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Mr. PUTNAM. The fundamental policy you are working off of, correct me if I am wrong, is that the stacks are inherently safer than

any of the alternative uses proposed.

Ms. COTSWORTH. As of this time, yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. And so the standard that the petitioners——

Ms. COTSWORTH. When they are managed in accordance with

current regulations.

Mr. PUTNAM. OK. The standards that the petitioner must then

rise to is not that the alternative use is safe, but that its benefits

outweigh the benefits of keeping it stacked up behind us here, is

that correct?

Ms. COTSWORTH. We look at the benefits. It has to be equivalent

in terms of the risk. We look at risk to human health and the environment and it has to be in a way that we can translate to safe

and protective of human health and the environment, which is no

greater than a 1 times 10 to the minus 4.

Mr. PUTNAM. But they have to prove though that it is a better

use than the being stacked up, not just that it is effective and safe

in the landfill, not just that it is safe and effective in a road bed,

not just that it is effective and safe as an artificial reef or in a glass

container on a rocket to Mars. They have to prove that it is better

than being stacked up, because that is the fundamental policy that

you are weighing against.

Ms. COTSWORTH. It has to be a use that is beneficial, a use for

which there is a market, that there is a——

Mr. PUTNAM. Or that a market could be created from, whether

there is an existing market.

Ms. COTSWORTH. Or that we have some reasonable assurance

that a market could be created for. There are situations in regard

to other wastes that I am aware of where not all uses would be

considered beneficial and legitimate.

But our bottom line is the risk.

Mr. PUTNAM. Are you familiar with something called PATHRAE?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It is a model that my office relied on in regard

to I believe the 1992 and subsequent rulemakings. That is as much

as I know about PATHRAE.

Mr. PUTNAM. So it is the EPA’s model for risk assessment, or it

was at least in 1992.

Ms. COTSWORTH. It is a model I believe. I may be able to ask—

I know it is cited in this document. I apologize, I cannot go technically any further in discussing PATHRAE.

Mr. PUTNAM. But it is the model that you used to promulgate the

rule in 1992, it is the research model that you used, correct?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It was used. I cannot tell you whether it was

the only model or not, but it was used.

Mr. PUTNAM. But you used it, so we assume that you would accept it, it is a pretty good model if you used it in 1992. Has any

of this additional research been done using the PATHRAE model

so that we could compare apples to apples, Dr. Chambers?

Mr. CHAMBERS. If I might comment. In 1998, it was, I believe,

we did a very detailed risk assessment for FIPR on using

phosphogypsum for roads and agriculture. And as a first step, we

thought we would try and benchmark our models against the models used in the 1992 BID and there were in fact two models,

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PATHRAE which is referred to as a multi-media pathways model,

it takes air and soil ingestion; and I believe in some cases EPA

complemented the PATHRAE model with a model called MicroShield, which is another widely used model for gamma radiation.

I do not have time here, but with some effort, we actually had

some difficulty in tracking down the actual inputs that EPA used,

but we were able to, in the end, reproduce their 1992 BID results

plus or minus a few percent. So as a first step, we did reproduce

them.

Then basically, because these models were quite awkward to use,

we did a screening calculation using other regulatory models. We

continued to use MicroShield plus also the models by NRC which

were a bit more advanced at the time and easier to use, and for

the same inputs, we could benchmark those also to the earlier

PATHRAE. When we did a screening using the NRC models, we

again came up with the same conclusions that the other pathways

were negligible and it was really radon and gamma that were the

issue.

So yes, we have been able to test them. We can, with the same

assumptions, reproduce the EPA’s numbers.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Cotsworth’s concern is that the models that are

being used in this research may differ from EPA or may make certain assumptions that would not be the assumptions that they

would make if they were running the same risk calculation. I am

paraphrasing you, but what have you done in your research to ensure that it is something that the EPA would accept, that the models are credible, that they are using the right assumptions and that

it is good science?

Mr. CHAMBERS. There is a whole history to this. As I mentioned

before, we were able to benchmark our model. By benchmark, I

mean get the same results for the same inputs to the EPA’s models. And then to move forward, we did more than EPA with regard

to pulling together information that is relevant to the situation in

Florida for the soil application rates, road construction methods,

house construction methods, indoor radon as it relates to soil radium-226 levels. And this is actually based on data that is documented in our report. I quite strongly believe that if we had the

opportunity, we could convince EPA quite readily that our models

were reasonable. It might be more difficult to convince them that

our assumptions are appropriate; for example, the 70-year residency and this kind of thing.

However, I would like one final comment, to add that there is an

inconsistency within even the radiation side of things between 70

years and 30 years, but also between Office of Radiation Programs

and Office of Solid Waste. As I mentioned earlier, in 1999, when

EPA did an examination of potential hazards from using fertilizer,

they actually used a farm residency of 17 to 18 years, which is yet

a different number.

So I think—I believe we can demonstrate good science behind our

models and indeed EPA is moving toward the kind of modeling

that we did, which uses Monte Carlo calculations to take account

of uncertainties and I think EPA is moving in that direction. I

think where the bigger challenge might be is arguing or discussing

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what the appropriate assumptions are, and residency, for example,

is one of them.

Mr. PUTNAM. So could you please clarify again what you do for

the United Nations? That was in your biography, about the

UNSCEARs?

Mr. CHAMBERS. The UNSCEAR is the United Nations Scientific

Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation was created in about

1955 by the United Nations, and I believe there are 26 countries,

could be 27 including the United States and Canada and Britain

and Germany and Russia and Japan and China, etc. And the responsibility of this group is to periodically—typically every 4 to 5

years—review all of the new verified, published, refereed research

on the occurrence of radioactivity in the environment, and most importantly the health effects. This includes dosimetry and epidemiology. These documents are produced every 4 to 5 years and are used

and referred to frequently by the U.S. National Council on Radiological Protection, by the U.S. EPA for that matter, by the International Commission on Radiological Protection, to whom the EPA

often refers.

And it is an honor, but it is an agony. Consultant is basically volunteer time and my task right now is to revise, actually write the

next UNSCEAR report on radon health effects.

Mr. PUTNAM. So we are not talking about some fly by-night backyard outfit here, we are working for the United Nations. And coming from the Congress, that can be sort of a frustrating group to

work with, so you are to be commended for doing it.

But the models that you have developed, the work that you have

done is often referred to by EPA, is that what I heard you say?

Mr. CHAMBERS. The kinds of models that we have used, which

include Monte Carlo calculations, which take account of uncertainty, have very much been used by EPA, and EPA I believe is

moving more toward more routine use of these models because I

am different than my colleague beside me, I may eat more, I am

bigger, I may breathe more, and these models allow you to actually

take account of difference in breathing rates and weight and this

kind of thing. And it is the state-of-the-art that we have in modeling today.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. The Tampa Bay Estuary Program coordinated a conference call for the EPA with more than 30 marine

scientists to review the Piney Point situation that resulted in a

unanimous consensus for the Gulf discharge plan. If we had heavy

rains, if we had another Piney Point situation occur, would the Estuary Program support a similar decision and in reviewing that situation, what were the program’s recommendations for ways to

avoid a similar situation in the future?

Mr. ECKENROD. The request from EPA was whether or not the

group of experts that we convened believed there was greater risk

in disposing of a portion of that accumulated and partially treated

wastewater offshore versus continuing to discharge into Tampa

Bay. We consulted with marine experts from around the Gulf, experts in harmful algae blooms in particular, and the consensus of

that group was that there was less risk in moving that water offshore than there was allowing that continued accumulation of that

103

water in the stacks at Piney Point, or alternatively, discharging it

into Tampa Bay. Both of those were options.

There was no—I think the groups that I have been working with

and the Estuary Program has been working with, and that includes

the Agency on Bay Management in Tampa Bay, we all, you know,

share the belief that we need to take every reasonable measure

possible to avoid occurrences like Piney Point in the future. And

that is part of the reason I was interested in participating in this

hearing today, to share that concern and encourage this group to

pursue, and EPA to actively pursue these beneficial uses of

phosphogypsum to the extent that it can help reduce risk like

Piney Point in the future.

Mr. PUTNAM. From your perspective, do you believe that the environmental risk associated with stacks is greater than the risk of

dispersing the stacks throughout the State amongst the alternative

uses that have been illustrated, is it a greater risk to leave them

stacked up?

Mr. ECKENROD. Well, it is a difficult question for me to answer,

not being an expert in radiation and obviously there are many people that have spoken today who do have that expertise. I can only

say, Congressman, that based on the testimony I have heard, there

is certainly expressed many potential uses of phosphogypsum that

offer the hope that the risk would be—by making use of those opportunities, the risk could be reduced below what the current technology provides for; that is, stacking it.

Mr. PUTNAM. Dr. Sumner, do you wish to add anything to what

we have heard in terms of the models that have been used and the

work that you have done and others have done and this acceptability to the EPA?

Mr. SUMNER. Mr. Chairman, I have been in this game for 45

years and I have had all the research work I have ever done reviewed by my peers, and I find it is an insult to hear that any of

the research that I am accredited in my report or that I might have

done myself is suspect. Scientists work according to given rules and

our science is the best available.

So in my report, there is no fiction. This is the fact of the matter

as we know it today. There might be some holes in it, we do not

know, but those are facts. I want to say that first.

Second, I want to interject a little bit of common sense into this

discussion here today, Mr. Chairman. In the old days, we used to

use single super phosphate, which was composed of calcium dihydrogen phosphate and calcium sulfate, gypsum, in a 50/50 mix

roughly, roughly 50/50. So in the old days, if the engineers had not

got to us and decided we needed high analysis fertilizers to cut

down on transportation costs, we would still be spreading single

super phosphate all over the country. And if we did that at the rate

that is recommended, and this would be the low rate that is recommended, at about 30 pounds per acre per year, we would be

spreading 120 pounds of gypsum and that would be Florida gypsum full of radiation probably on every acre of agricultural soil,

definitely east of the Mississippi and probably some distance west

of the Mississippi. And we would have been doing that now for

more than 100 years and we would have far exceeded the 2,700

pounds that the EPA has used and I venture to say right now that

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the EPA would not have had the temerity to ban single super phosphate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Lloyd, your comments at this stage in the

game?

Mr. LLOYD. I would like to correct one thing that was said. Ms.

Cotsworth made the comment that the concentration was increased

in phosphogypsum. The concentration of radioactivity is actually

reduced in phosphogypsum.

I would like to receive the documentation that she had mentioned that says they had checked out building roads with 10

picocurie phosphogypsum. If that is in any of the BID documents,

I cannot find it. Doug, were you ever able to find it, using 10

picocuries for road building?

Dr. CHAMBERS. I did not see their analysis—I cannot recall seeing their analysis of 10 picocuries per gram.

Mr. LLOYD. So I would like to see that.

The one thing that might be interesting to you as a Congressman, in the 1989 rule, the public participation never discussed banning phosphogypsum. That part was not part of the discussion or

the rule. And I would appreciate this easy-to-use guidance. We

asked for it back in 1995. I would think 19 years is a long time

to get it done.

Mr. PUTNAM. Ms. Cotsworth, could you provide to the subcommittee the background information, the studies on road building using to 10 picocurie per gram material for north Florida?

Ms. COTSWORTH. Just a minor correction. I indicated that we did

studies that suggested that a national generic permission for use

as road building material was not supported in terms of risk. I do

not believe I used the term 10 picocuries per gram in regard to that

specific reference.

In the BID documents, as requested, the specific reference is to

an investigator by the name of Roffler, Gamma radiation and radon

flux from roads constructed with bases having phosphogypsumbearing aggregate, from the University of Florida, 1987. And the

information is contained, I believe, on pages 426 and 427. That is

the information that the staff at that point used.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

The real crux of all this is that it is the opinion of—and I believe

the adopted policy of at least this county that finding a viable economic use for these stacks is our goal. And the State of Florida has

invested, through the Department of Education and with substantial support from the private sector, in the Florida Institute of

Phosphate Research, as well as the other academic studies that

have gone on, to find a use for this product.

I am hopeful that this hearing will have communicated to the

EPA our interest in allowing research to go forward that would

provide us some guidance for alternative use of this product. It has

bubbled under the surface for years and has been something that

people talk about when they drive down Highway 60 and they see

them. But it has reached an important sense of urgency as a result

of the events of last summer and the discharge that had to occur,

that highlights the potential risk that storing these stacks poses.

I think it is tragic that legitimate, accredited, highly thought of reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:53 Oct 20, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00108 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 D:\DOCS\95739.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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searchers have a difficult time interacting with their government

and finding a way to share research that has the potential for public benefit. And that has transcended Republican administrations,

Democrat administrations. It is a culture issue at EPA that has absolutely nothing to do with who is in charge, because the same people are in those offices in Atlanta and at the mid level and everything else that make these decisions.

So I would hope that as a result of this hearing, which may just

be the second of several if need be, that we would facilitate a better

information transfer, that we could have some objective, some goal

line of knowing what the definition of a complete application is so

that process can move forward and the people of Polk County, people of Florida and the potential new industries that could come

from alternative uses and the potential savings that could accrue

in terms of road building or land fill management would be able

to have some guidance. And that guidance, that progress, has been

lacking. And it has been, I think very frustrating for an awful lot

of people.

So, you know, I would hope that we would get the information

that we have requested, that we can facilitate the meetings that

you have committed to and, frankly, I think expand it certainly to

include my office and your water office, we will make that communication as well, because I think something that has come forward

today is that there clearly has to be a conflict of environmental

goals between your water office and your air quality office when

your water office is sent to respond to an emergency created by the

concentration of phosphogypsum in stacks and the water that is

held as a result of rainfall and everything else. So I think that is

an important component to this as well. And I invite you to respond.

Ms. COTSWORTH. I want to make this petition process work for

both the agency and the petitioners. And I have made it a priority

since I have become the office director to both clearly respond to

and process the current petition that we have in-house, and to

issue the guidance that petitioners have been crying for. I also believe that I personally have a reputation for being someone who

deals honestly and openly and is accessible to members of the regulated community as well as the rest of the public. And I am interested in making sure that—the bottom line is that the decisions

that we make are clear and transparent, but also publicly and technically and scientifically defensible.

So I will certainly be willing to work with your office and the

other people at this table. I know science has progressed, there

have been changes in the agency since 1989 and the 1992 regulations. There has also been culture changes within the agency. But

I will be glad to work with the petitioners, your office, our fellow

regulatory agencies and others in regard to this issue.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much.

How many other issues are in your portfolio that involve this

type of history with a State-sponsored research laboratory who has

been specifically charged with investigating the use of a product

that you regulate and has that kind of 19-year tradition of trying

to move this along. Is that a fairly common thing?

Ms. COTSWORTH. No, it is fairly unique.

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Mr. PUTNAM. In most agencies or departments, you would assume in life that when you have sort of a small universe of players

and one of them has been around since day one and are legitimate,

you know, they are not—you know, being in the constituent service

business, we all understand that sometimes folks come to the table

bearing more research and more facts and have the credentials to

back those up. It would seem that a better relationship would have

just naturally developed over time, knowing that there is a whole

building out here full of laboratories working to do nothing but find

a better use for phosphogypsum, and it just seems odd that it has

degenerated into sort of an adversarial thing instead of really a

committed partnership to find a better use.

I take you at your word and hope that today marks a turning

point and a move toward progress toward working to resolve these

issues.

I also just wanted to ask if there were, as part of the Clean Air

Act reauthorization, if there were a legislative change that affected

the regulation of phosphogypsum that would allow for the use in

these instances—road beds and landfills as well as a couple of the

other things that we talked about, the glass and the marine life—

would you lay awake at night worried about public health and the

impact that might have on the population?

Ms. COTSWORTH. It is inappropriate for me to comment on the

possibility of legislative changes. Again, we will be glad to work

with you or whomever on the Hill in regard to technical evaluation,

give you our best technical and scientific input for you to use in

making your tough decisions relative to legislation and then we

will implement them appropriately.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you.

Mr. Keaton, would you like to add anything?

Mr. KEATON. Well, I guess in listening to everything that has

been said, I think one thing that maybe we ought to point out here

is that the doses and the risks that we have been talking about are

calculated. These are numbers and models that we use to work

with. There is real risk involved with hazards with this material

getting into the environment as far as a dam breaking or things

along these lines. So there are risks there that have to be balanced

and I guess the EPA and the people have to deal with that.

What we do, what we would welcome is that the unfettered research and development of these products and these techniques in

using this material, we welcome them and would work to help do

that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Mr. Eckenrod.

Mr. ECKENROD. You may have heard me shudder a little bit at

the discussion earlier about some of the potential marine uses of

phosphogypsum. I think we do need to think very carefully, as we

would about any potential uses on the environmental effects of

those. But it looks to me like—and I go back to what Mike Lloyd

said earlier—that in the past when FIPR has talked to EPA, it has

been constructive, they have made progress. So to the extent that

this hearing can help get that constructive dialog back on track, I

think it will be very successful.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you very much. Mr. Lloyd. Dr. Sumner. Dr.

Chambers.

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Mr. CHAMBERS. Just a very brief comment. I would like to correct

something as well.

There was in fact a detailed radiological assessment submitted

along with the petition and so someplace in EPA files, there is information on radioactivity and potential radiological risks associated with it.

Other than that, when we submitted these, we tried to write

them in a form, we sat down and asked ourselves a question if we

were EPA, what kind of information would we like. So it may not

be quite right, but we did make an attempt to make it easy. So we

are hoping that EPA considers the work that we did in submitting

the application when they come up with their guidelines.

Thank you very much.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Dr. Shieh.

Mr. SHIEH. I would like to make a final comment. It seems to me

the whole process looks at the project as a full scale operation, but

it is not. It is still just one study and the finding of that study will

provide solutions for big scale application. So a lot of effort has

been put to me, it seems not in the right direction—a lot of effort

we are doing today may not be necessary. So I want to ask again,

please do not treat this project as a full scale application request,

this is just one study to demonstrate if this idea is feasible or not

feasible.

Mr. PUTNAM. Especially the phase III request, right?

Mr. SHIEH. Yes, yes, yes.

Mr. PUTNAM. Well, I want to thank all of our distinguished panelists for their contribution to our understanding of this issue and

the potentially beneficial uses as well as the risks that have to be

balanced in using phosphogypsum for purposes other than stacking. It is necessary to reconsider the calculations that determine

the commercial product or waste, in my view. We have a number

of studies that suggest that it would be advantageous to everyone

as well as environmentally sustainable to revise the EPA ban of

phosphogypsum in research and in industry.

Certainly as was the case in the event there are additional questions we did not have time for today, the record will remain open

for 2 weeks for submitted questions and answers. I believe that the

subcommittee has put forward a number of information requests

that we expect to be answered promptly, and we certainly appreciate the efforts that everyone has put into this.

I would note also for the record that the Florida Institute of

Phosphate Research is within walking distance of this facility and

I suspect if we want to use this as an opportunity to put our panelists together, I believe Mr. Lloyd might answer this correctly—

available for all of our panelists to huddle up and talk about exactly what some of the issues are and how we can resolve this and

make the application complete and move forward in a thoughtful,

science-based manner.

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So with that, I want to thank the audience for attending as well,

I think your interest certainly demonstrates community involvement and a community interest in seeing this move forward in a

productive and fruitful way. And the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 1:19 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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