Tens of millions of gallons of reprocessed water from a fertilizer plant in central Florida are likely being dumped into the Floridan aquifer after a massive sinkhole opened up underneath a gypsum stack at a Mosaic phosphate fertilizer company.
Mosaic, the world's largest supplier of phosphate, said in a news release Friday that the sinkhole is about 45 feet in diameter.
The company says the water, which was stored atop the gypsum stack, had been reprocessed during the manufacturing process. Mosaic began diverting it out of the cell and into an alternate holding area on site to reduce the amount of drainage when the decrease was first detected.
Mosaic says it's monitoring groundwater and has found no offsite impacts.
The Polk County phosphate plant is still running.
