Occupational, Public and Environmental Radiological Impact Caused by the Phosphoric Acid Industry: The Case of Huelva (Spain)

Abstract

The production of phosphate fertilizers usually uses as raw material sedimentary phosphate rock, which contains enhanced concentrations from U-series radionuclides about 10-100 times higher than unperturbed soils. This fact implies the need for evaluating the radiological implications of this activity. In our case, the study has been performed in a large fertilizer industrial complex located at Huelva town (SW of Spain), where sedimentary phosphate rock has been processed since 1965 to 2010, generating annually an average of about 2.5 million tons of a by-product called phosphogypsum (PG), which has been stored in big stacks 1 km away from Huelva city, covering 1000 ha. The fluxes of the radionuclides of interest along the production process and the effective doses received by the workers have been determined. In addition, the radioecological impact associated to the waste management strategy followed has been evaluated.

Experimental study on the use of granulometric speciation for the radiometric dating of recent sediments

“…In this work are used surface sediments sampled from the Tinto Estuary (SW Spain) and the Ankobra Estuary (Ghana). The first being historically affected by mining activities and releases from chemical industries, including phosphate fertilizers (Guerrero-Márquez et al, 2017), and the second nowadays seriously affected by artisanal goldmining activities (Klubi et al, 2018).…”