Phosphate Industry Air Pollution in Central Florida, 1957-1970

What is it about?

This article describes the serious air (and water) pollution problems associated with the major phosphate mining, refining, and processing operations in Central Florida, especially Polk County and neighboring counties east of Tampa, during the postwar decades. Phosphates, used in agricultural fertilizer, had to be separated from the fluorine and other substances with which they were naturally bonded, resulting in emission of large volumes of toxic pollutants into Florida's air and water. In the days before the federal government set national air pollution standards, Florida state officials were reluctant to impose controls on a major state industry, and Central Floridans, especially cattle ranchers and citrus growers, suffered severely from phosphate industry pollution as a result.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

The story of the Central Florida phosphate industry emissions offers an unusually clear example of why leaving the setting of environmental standards on air and water pollution control to state governments did not work during the postwar decades: it was too easy for state governments, eager for economic growth, to ignore major environmental problems, particularly when polluting industries could readily threaten to move to another state. [Resulting in what economists sometimes have called "the race to the bottom" on environmental standards.] Although federal officials were well aware of the serious environmental problems in Central Florida, through the 1960s, when federal environmental programs still only had the power and authority to assist and give suggestions to state programs, federal environmental officials mostly could only stand idly by while state officials did little to control severe pollution problems. State residents, frustrated by their own state government's inaction, cried for help from the federal government, but then-existing notions of federalism and states' rights in environmental policy precluded the federal government stepping in to control the serious industrial pollution in the Central Florida phosphate belt. Thus, this article addresses a crucial, ongoing problem in environmental regulation that applies to international as well as interstate boundaries and jurisdictions: the "pollution haven" problem.