ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The Florida legislature is considering a bill to remove strict liability for radiation-related injuries caused by the phosphate mining industry.

House Bill 167 would also make it harder for people and communities to sue phosphate companies and hold them accountable for harming public health.

“Our lawmakers are putting corporate polluters above Floridians’ health and our clean air and water,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Legislators are supposed to represent the people who voted for them, not commercial interests. This legal shield would be another irresponsible handout to the phosphate industry.”

The bill has passed two House committees and is ready for a vote when the legislative session begins in January. The Florida Senate does not yet have a companion bill.

Under the bill, Floridians harmed by radiation from former phosphate-mined lands would have to prove the mining company was negligent. This is a significantly higher legal hurdle compared to lawsuits addressing other forms of environmental pollution brought under the Water Quality Assurance Act.

“This bill is a free pass for the phosphate mining industry that won’t do a thing to protect the unsuspecting landowner who buys a home on formerly mined land,” said Whitlock. “Radiation exposure on formerly mined lands presents a serious health risk, so we should be holding the industry to a higher standard, not a lower one. If legislators want to require more public notice and surveys, they should do so without making it more difficult for Floridians who are harmed.”

The bill was introduced by Rep. Lawrence McClure (R-Dover). McClure previously sponsored a 2023 bill approving the use of radioactive phosphate waste in road construction.

According to a news report, The Mosaic Company, a Fortune-500 company and Florida’s largest phosphate miner, hosted a political fundraiser for McClure soon after the bill passed. The Mosaic Company is also paying a lobbying firm to push House Bill 167, which could affect litigation alleging radiation-related harm at many of the company’s former mine sites.

Phosphate mining poses a serious threat to the Florida environment, and the polluted landscapes it leaves behind also threaten people’s health. In addition to violently transforming Florida’s landscape and eating up thousands of acres of valuable habitat that are impossible to restore to their natural state, phosphate mining also leads to the creation of radioactive and characteristically hazardous waste. More than 1 billion tons of radioactive waste are stored in 25 stacks scattered throughout Florida, perched atop the Floridan aquifer, which supplies drinking water for 10 million people. Florida’s karst geology and shifting soils have led to sinkholes and pollution loss events at many stacks, including Mosaic’s New Wales facility where four major sinkholes have occurred.

In 2021, a pollution event from a phosphogypsum stack into Tampa Bay was linked to a massive fish kill after 215 million gallons of toxic, radioactive wastewater were discharged in Tampa Bay to avert the catastrophic collapse of a waste impoundment that necessitated the evacuation of 300 homes.

Learn more about phosphogypsum and efforts to protect public health and the environment from its harms.