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.
This reads like a headline from some Superman-Comic where Lex Luthor was elected governor.
What’s his reasoning? No way anyone could know the facts and be okay with this.
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.
Plus the apparent constant release of radon to the general public.
Don’t let financial motives fool you this is the real reason
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.
My guess is that his reasoning goes like this: “I’m a cartoon-evil piece of shit. Is there anything I can do to make things worse for real people? Cancer roads? Hey, that’s great!”
At this point, I would not be surprised if he was Judge Doom in disguise.
DeSantis has not yet publicly commented on the signing of this bill
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.
I like the idea but I doubt it would work. Unless you want all laws signed with the comment:
bug fixes and stability improvements
Sticking it to the libs
raucous applause
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Probably that there’s a lot of it and it’s cheaper than asphalt. I don’t know for sure though.
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Radioactive roads could power the cars using them without the greenhouse gas emissions of fossil-fuel cars; combined with the self-driving car technology on the horizon, it’s a far-sighted vision of the future that Ron Desantis should be applauded for - the one catch is every person who uses the roads is dead from cancer, but it’s still a wonderful vision…just hope he doesn’t use the roads while visualizing because he will lose his vision because of the radioactivity.
Maybe Skynet watched War Games and learned from Joshua’s mistake - no one wins thermonuclear war. Instead Skynet’s new plan is to make power-generating, radioactive roads that’ll kill all the humans with cancer. It’s a win-win!
Isn’t this guy trying to run for president? We need to understand how much worse things can get
Yup the one who wants to either get rid of the IRS and the departments of Education, Energy and Commerce entirely or to use them to “push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life.” See this thread
I saw one article on that. What I did not see is any form of actual plan. Was he asked what happens to Trademarks and Copyrights? What happens to nuclear waste? I am sure all the businesses in the country will love the idea of getting rid of the Department of Commerce, which includes copyrights and trademarks.
Fascists don’t need a plan to destroy things.
The less of a plan they have the more effective they are at destruction.
At least he can remember which ones he wants to eliminate. That’s a step up from Rick Perry.
The IRS, at least, was always intended to be temporary, as was the federal income tax.
He’s somehow worse than Trump. I didn’t think that was possible. Trump is uncaring and wants to steal. DeSantis seems like he just wants to hurt people AND be corrupt.
Imagine an oil tanker explodes on the road after an accident and burns for a long period of time, melting the road and releasing tons of radioactive toxic smoke… But that’ll never happen right
It’s amazing how 1 person can fuck up a state so much
This seems like something the DOT / Federal Government should be able to nip in the bud.
Wow, DeSantis is really knocking it our of the park lately. /s
Ahh, so that might be his plan for radioactive waste when he gets rid of the Department of Energy, like he claims he wants to.
But it’s just radon - people have that shit in their basements all the time. I am curious if this could actually work. Like there is a limited amount of radon in the material, and once its out there in a thin layer, wouldn’t it all vent off after a short period of time? Especially in the sun?
The radiation issue with phosphogypsum is mostly the Thorium.
Which isn’t much of an issue really.
The environmental issues really come from the chemical properties of the material. As the quote goes; radiation is fleeting, arsenic is forever.
Not that phosphogypsum has elevated levels of arsenic, but it does have phosphates that cause Eutrophication. Which kills lakes and waterways.
Then there’s the Thorium and Uranium. Those are radioactive, but are also heavy metals and cause heavy metal poisoning. Thorium doesn’t have a common water soluble oxide, but Uranium sure does. So that’s two things that leech out of the phosphogypsum…
“Not that phosphogypsum has elevated levels of arsenic, but it does have phosphates that cause Eutrophication. Which kills lakes and waterways.”
Perfect for use in Florida swamplands, you say? The War on Woke Gators has begun!
Basements don’t see much action though. I imagine that a road is constantly under stress. Both from vehicles and temperature changes, all this causes cracking. I’m worried that this tasty dust will travel places (i.e. up peoples’ lungs).
At this point, he could say “I don’t give a fuck whether you people live or die, but at least I ain’t woke!” and he’d still get lots of votes.
Wait a minute.
Radon, the gas emitted from phosphogypsum, trails just smoking to rank as the second-leading cause of lung cancer, and is linked to about 21,000 lung cancer deaths every year in the U.S., according to the EPA. The agency also says it’s the “single greatest environmental source of radiation exposure.”
So why does the headline call it “potentially cancer-causing”?
The poison is in the dose.
Because presumably not everyone who is exposed to it get cancer. Just because it causes it a lot of the time doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.
Now Florida is cancerous in more ways than one!
Great, just what we need. Radioactive fucknuts.
Trump was chaotic evil (evil because he was narcissistic). This person is lawful evil. If he becomes president, no one will be able to remove him from power forever.
Is it lawful evil because he’s writing evil laws?
