WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Environmental Protection Agency today for approving the use of radioactive phosphogypsum in road construction at Mosaic’s New Wales facility in Mulberry, Florida.

The EPA has long prohibited using phosphogypsum in roads because it contains uranium and radium that produce radionuclides linked to higher risks of cancer and genetic damage. The agency’s approval kicks off Mosaic’s industry-led pilot project, designed to be the “intermediate” step to approval of the use of radioactive waste in road building nationwide.

“The EPA is directly contradicting its own science and regulations by tripling the permitted cancer risk to the public and ignoring key radiation pathways,” said Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This obvious handout to the fertilizer industry is the latest evidence of the EPA’s habit of doing more to protect corporate polluters than our environment and public health.”

In approving this project, the agency ignored its own expert consultant, who found numerous scenarios that would expose the public — particularly road-construction workers — to a cancer risk the agency considers to be unacceptably dangerous.

Since 1989 the EPA has required phosphogypsum to be stored in mountainous piles called “stacks,” because if dispersed, the material would present an unreasonable public health threat from radon gas emissions that would continue for generations given their radioactive 1,600-year half-life. In addition to radionuclides, the EPA has found that phosphogypsum contains trace metals that threaten surface and groundwater resources, including chromium, arsenic, lead, cadmium, zinc, antimony and copper.

Phosphate ore, mined largely in Florida, is transported to fertilizer plants for processing by chemically digesting the ore in sulfuric acid. For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, the fertilizer industry creates five tons of radioactive phosphogypsum waste.

As a result Florida is now home to more than 1 billion tons of radioactive phosphogypsum permanently stored in stacks; the fertilizer industry adds approximately 40 million tons each year.