Giant sinkhole opens up in pond used to hold radioactive water outside Mulberry plant

MULBERRY, Fla. — A massive sinkhole opened up in Polk County Friday outside a company that makes fertilizer in Mulberry.

It's in the middle of a pond used to hold contaminated and radioactive water, which is used to process the fertilizer.

Officials said about 215 million gallons of water drained into the Florida aquifer.

Waterfalls were streaming down the sides of the hole.

Managers at the Mosaic-New Wales plant on Country Road 640 said pumps from a recovery well are pulling the contaminated water out of the ground and back into the plant.

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 said 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 said it's monitoring groundwater and has found no offsite impacts.

The Polk County phosphate plant is still running.

Cox Media Group