Rep. Putnam Pressures EPA On Gypstacks BARTOW (WUSF) - Even though many people may never have heard of phosphogypsum, it's presence in the Tampa Bay area is unmistakable. Drive down State Road 60 in Polk County, State Road 62 in Manatee County - even along Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa - and the flat-topped mounds rising in the distance catch the eye.

Twenty-four of these slightly toxic mountains pepper Florida's landscape. And an estimated 30 million tons are added to those stacks every year.

For the past 15 years, the federal government has said these byproducts of phosphate processing can't be used for any purpose but to sit in giant hills. Congressman Adam Putnam of Bartow is trying to change what he calls an adversarial relationship between local officials and federal environmental regulators.

PUTNAM: You can never find anybody to give you an answer, you can never find anybody that seems interested in working to make it work. And that's the rub. That's the real frustrating part here.

Representative Putnam has been frustrated enough in getting the issue noticed that he hosted a meeting with local phosphate researchers and representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Elizabeth Cotsworth is director of the EPA's Office of Radiation and Indoor Air.

COTSWORTH: I agree. It has been adversarial. What I believe, and what I believe the new administrator wants to happen, is that there is collaboration and honest dialogue.

But Putnam says he hasn't seen that kind of dialogue. He vowed to take the results of his committee meeting to Congress and federal environmental regulators.

These mountains of phosphogypsum - which are called gypstacks - usually stay out of the public eye until one of walls fall down or threatens to overflow from too much rain.

In 1997, the walls of a gypstack near Mulberry in Polk County collapsed, sending millions of gallons of acidic water into the Alafia River. Untold numbers of fish and plants were killed.

And in 2001, the state had to step in when the owners of the Piney Point processing plant in Manatee County declared bankruptcy. Since then, the state has spent millions treating and siphoning acidic process water, so Tampa Bay wouldn't be inundated by a toxic spill.

The EPA has said the slight radioactivity in phosphogypsum rules out its use in roadbeds or wallboards for housing. They say there's an increased chance of getting cancer if one breathes the radon emissions over a period of 70 years.

After the meeting, Putnam castigated the EPA for not heeding requests for full-scale tests for its use.

PUTNAM: I don't have any doubt in my mind that EPA has not wanted to broach this subject. I think that the point by Doctor Shieh was the best, that when you won't even permit research to fund alternatives, or to find the answer to the question, then EPA themselves are standing in the way of good science. And that's tragic.

One of those researchers is Mike Lloyd, of the Florida Institute for Phosphate Research. The Bartow-based institute is state-funded and attempts to find uses for phosphate and its waste products.

LLOYD: If we could save $100,000 a mile, that's a mighty big savings for the number of roads we build in Polk County, not talking about the rest of Florida. The risks as we've shown them are not that great.

Cotsworth told the committee that there's a chance of radon gas escaping from phosphogypsum in roadbeds.

COTSWORTH: 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.

Lloyd says there are other uses for phosphogypsum. Those include its use in small doses as a soil additive, and as a raw material of glass, from which the radon glass could not escape. Phosphogypsum can also be used in landfills, to help organic matter decompose.

Representative Putnam says he plans to personally lobby for change from Capitol Hill. © Copyright 2012, WUSF