More than 200m gallons of contaminated wastewater from a fertilizer plant in central Florida leaked into one of the state’s main underground sources of drinking water after a huge sinkhole opened up beneath a storage pond, a phosphate company said on Friday. Aquifers are vast, underground systems of porous rocks that hold water and allow water to move through the holes within the rock. Mosaic began diverting the pond water into an alternative holding area to reduce the amount of drainage when the problem was first detected. Jellerson said the water typically flowed in a cycle from pond to plant to pond during the fertilizer manufacturing process. Environmental groups said the damage from the sinkhole could be severe, and added to decades of pollution from the phosphorous fertilizer industry.

Source: The Guardian September 17, 2016 13:07 UTC