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Florida bill allowing radioactive roads made of potentially cancer-causing mining waste signed by DeSantis (www.cbsnews.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/politics@kbin.social
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Under the new bill, Florida could have roads made of phosphogypsum, a material known by the EPA to contain a "potentially cancer-causing, radioactive gas," that's the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S.

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[–] 18 points 3 years ago (18 children)

What’s his reasoning? No way anyone could know the facts and be okay with this.

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  • [–] 31 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    Financial support from the corporations that can now sell their radioactive waste to the Florida government instead of paying for it to be properly disposed of.

    This is going to kill so many road workers.

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  • [–] 19 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    I would need someone from Florida to weigh in, but usually these kind of "pro-infrastructure" bills that obviously have social costs such as cancer-inducing materials are usually reserved for ahem specific neighborhoods. I'm surprised to hear (not read because the article wouldn't expand for me on that webpage) that this would be tested at a facility as usually big corps don't want to do anything to actively kill their poor workforce, but I guess they're following the Amazon "the poors are expendable" warehouse model of labor management.

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  • [–] [S] 15 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    DeSantis has not yet publicly commented on the signing of this bill

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I feel like a public comment should be required for Bill signing. I know it isn't. Just at this point, definitely feels like it should be.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 years ago

    This is far more good faith than Florida Republicans deserve at this point, but I can at least imagine the possibility that there is a way to use phosphogypsum in a way such that the produced Radon is trapped or released in such small and limited quantities that it poses no significant risk to human health.

    Now, do I think there's a chance in hell that's actually what's going to happen here? Not at all.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (3 children)

    it's a common byproduct of certain industries like fertilizer production

    basically you're turning a waste product into building material so it'd be pretty cheap. you can build cheaper roads, so the state government can in theory save money

    in addition, it's more or less a handout to the companies that produce this waste product because they will now have a brand new product to sell whereas before they would be paying to get rid of it

    obviously it's dangerous - the EPA only allows the use of it with approval. although the law states that the florida department of transportation needs to be a study to make sure it's safe and they have until april 1st, 2024

    then after that it would need to be approved by the EPA, which includes all sorts of technical analysis and study that needs to be publicly released and there's also a period of public comment

    personally? i'm a floridian and hate desantis and i don't think this bill is that big of a deal. it's not like they're gonna start using this stuff tomorrow. they're going to try and see if they can find a safe way to use it. in my opinion, if there's a waste product we can use as building material and we can determine it won't cause harm to people or the environment.. why shouldn't we use it?

    it's cheaper for the taxpayers and we send less shit to the waste dump

    of course, this is all assuming that the checks and balances of the FDOT study & EPA approval are all in good faith. if that's hijacked by corporate interest then I don't know anymore

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    You had me until this part:

    personally? i'm a floridian and hate desantis and i don't think this bill is that big of a deal.

    Key passage in your post:

    in my opinion, if there's a waste product we can use as building material and we can determine it won't cause harm to people or the environment.. why shouldn't we use it?

    This is troubling because the general trend for SCOTUS and for specific state legislations, such as Florida, is that they move forward with harmful activities despite the demonstrated harm it could causes humans or the environment. SCOTUS has started really going after dismantling the EPA and taking the teeth out of its policies, so when you mention that all of this testing and proof needs to be completed within a year, that's really just a comment on how little oversight the EPA may still have by the time there's a moment of reckoning for this safety study.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    the study by the FDOT needs to be done within the year, then it triggers the EPA part

    I support this with the caveat that it's safe. I'm not really sure what the controversial thing about that statement is. Of course I don't fully trust the EPA. the FCC had a public comment period for the killing of net neutrality and we all know how much BS happened there. but having said that I've worked with the FDOT professionally for a long time and they have decent people working for them.

    florida's not some backwards shit hole there are open minded progressive people in places of power. it's just taken a swing towards the loonies with desantis

    again - if it's safe i support it. if our checks and balances work out, this isn't a bad bill. if you're right and the EPA just floats this thing regardless of the damage then OK you're right I'm wrong

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    You seemed to pick up on points I wasn't trying to make, and then seemed to ignore the points I was. I'm also not able to agree with several of your observations seeing as how the news shows otherwise.

    I am not making any claims that the EPA is corrupt and the comparison to the FCC - the example you gave having been something that occurred because the last horrible president appointed nothing but regulatory capture leadership in nearly every vital public service role in his administration - is really off the mark. It is true that during the last administration, the EPA was also subject to regulatory capture, but the overall mission of the EPA is not corrupt. Almost all of these agencies are only as awful as the president in charge, and I don't see Biden as someone who is actively trying to make the whole world worse in pursuit of a dollar (or evading felony convictions) the way that trump clearly was using the office of POTUS to do.

    I'm suggesting that having any stipulation that "I'm on board unless it's unsafe" will play out as "EPA: this is unsafe / Florida: we don't care. Our lobbyists are paying us to accept this. We are moving forward with it, see you in court." And then eventually, "SCOTUS: yeah, it's come to our attention again how much of a Debbie downer the EPA is and we historically love sucking the dick of big business, so we are cutting the EPA at the root since we've been slowly castrating it for decades anyway." I cannot be more strong in my language: this would never get the support of the EPA unless the EPA is already further gutted by this time next year, but Florida will roll it out anyway to the severe health detriment of probably Floridians of low income.

    I also highly disagree that there are any progressives in Florida who are in positions of real power. The state legislature literally just voted to make opaque how the governor spends money which suggests to me that the majority in the state lege of Florida are also loonies, the current governor not only ran out a former head of the state department of health because she was showing how Florida's reporting of COVID was unscrupulous at worst and sketch at best, to try to convince tourists that Florida was still DTF. The current governor has also basically used the state to terrorize her by having state officials remove her son from her home under the pretext of CPS intervention because he liked or shared a stupidly edgy meme online.

    So pardon if from the outside looking in, I don't share your faith in FDOT.

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