Hazardous Spills at Retired Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants Will Continue to Occur in the Absence of Scientific Innovation and Regulatory Enforcement
Hazardous Spills at Retired Fertilizer Manufacturing Plants Will Continue to Occur in the Absence of Scientific Innovation and Regulatory Enforcement
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如果缺乏科学创新和监管执法，退役化肥生产厂的危险泄漏事件将继续发生
DOI：
10.1021/acs.est.1c05311
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Marshall, Anna-Maria
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Nelson, Natalie G.;Cuchiara, Maude L.;Hendren, Christine Ogilvie;Jones, Jacob L.;Marshall, Anna-Maria
每年开采和加工数百万吨磷供应全球食品贸易的磷肥厂也是潜在环境风险的重要来源。美国佛罗里达州派尼角 (2.7 平方公里) 的废弃工厂说明了磷肥生产固有的风险，该工厂于 2021 年 3 月开始污染坦帕湾河口，其曾经为全球粮食生产提供燃料的营养物质（图 1）以及化肥制造过程中的有毒副产品。磷肥制造过程中产生的废物储存在包含废水池的大型“堆垛”中，开始从堆垛壁破损的衬里泄漏，威胁到周围的社区。超过 300 户家庭的居民被告知撤离，因为他们担心倒塌的烟囱可能会导致危险废水淹没附近的社区。用一种潜在灾难换取另一种潜在灾难，在 10 天内，超过 2 亿加仑的废水从派尼角泵入坦帕湾河口。在这 10 天内，废水排放估计向河口输送了 205 吨总氮，相当于该系统接收的典型年氮负荷。 1 海湾曾因将海草覆盖率恢复到 20 世纪 50 年代的水平而被誉为生态恢复的成功典范，但因此很容易受到藻华、鱼类死亡和海草损失的影响。
Phosphorus fertilizer plants that mine and process millions of tons of phosphorus annually to supply the global food trade also serve as acute sources of potential environmental risk. Risks inherent to phosphorus fertilizer production are illustrated by the abandoned plant at Piney Point, Florida, US (2.7 km2), which in March 2021 began to contaminate the Tampa Bay estuary with the same nutrients it once supplied to fuel global food production (Figure 1), as well as toxic byproducts of the fertilizer manufacturing process. Waste generated from the phosphorus fertilizer manufacturing process and stored in large “stacks” that contain wastewater ponds began to leak from breached liners of the stack walls, threatening surrounding communities. Residents of over 300 homes were told to evacuate over concern that the failing stacks may flood nearby neighborhoods with hazardous wastewater. Trading one form of potential disaster for another, over 200 million gallons of wastewater were then pumped fromPiney Point into the Tampa Bay estuary in the span of 10 days. Within these 10 days, this wastewater discharge delivered an estimated 205 tons of total nitrogen to the estuary, which is equivalent to the typical annual nitrogen load received by this system. 1 The Bay, previously heralded as an ecological restoration success story for having returned seagrass coverage to levels last observed in the 1950s, was consequently vulnerable to algal blooms, fish kills, and loss of hard-fought seagrass.