Since the board's April meeting, FIPR Research Director Michael Lloyd has talked to Polk County Engineer Bill Kenley about locating a potential road project and has analysts assessing the health risks associated with such a road. The decision to actively pursue the possibility of building a road came after talks with EPA officials who indicated that such a project might be allowed if deed restrictions guaranteed no house would ever be built on the road bed. EPA rules currently require that phosphogypsum be stacked and not used due to the trace amount of radium it contains.
Radium gives birth to radon, an odorless, colorless gas that is linked to lung cancer.
EPA's ban is based on the assumption that 100 years from now, if a home is built on farmland treated with phosphogysum or on a phosphogypsum road bed, those living in the house could suffer health problems. Research FIPR has funded leads the Institute to believe that EPA's risk determinations are overly conservative and that the proposed uses would provide specific economic benefits without posing a significant risk. And construction doesn't stop every time it rains because phosphogypsum doesn't need to dry out like clay. Board members, politicians, and citizen focus groups have all agreed that finding an acceptable, large-scale use for phosphogypsum should be a FIPR priority, and it has been since the state Legislature founded the Institute in 1978. Institute-sponsored studies and international conferences to share information about phosphogypsum have shown that it could be a valuable resource.