Tampa continues to clean up from Milton; flooding biggest impact for ferts industry

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Entering day two of post-hurricane activities and as the community of Tampa and surrounding cities attempt to clean up and dry out, the fertilizer industry is still assessing damage with flooding appearing to have had the biggest impact on production sites.

Striking as a Category 3 hurricane late 9 October the storm brought intense and life-threatening conditions to a section of Florida that had already faced such a threat less than two weeks before. It particularly impacted the Tamp, Florida area, which is a key hub of the US fertilizer industry.

Market sources, based in this region, said most of the focus on Friday was cleaning up and trying to determine how much damaged had been caused.

The extent of impacts to fertilizer facilities were not fully clear but producer Mosaic did say it had some issues because of the storm but that once it had the full updates about Hurricane Milton’s impact on their facilities it would post on their website.

As was the fear of environmentalists the gypstacks that are a fixture of phosphate production experienced problems with the water supporting the storage at the Mosaic Riverview facility having likely entered the Tampa Bay because of the extreme rainfall.

“Back-to-back historic storms crossed our operational areas. Our sites withstood the conditions with few challenges. Our Riverview site, which has operated on Tampa Bay for the last century, received nearly 15 inches of rain during Hurricane Milton less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene,” said Mosaic.

“A water collection system supporting our closed gypstack became overwhelmed, pushing excess water out a manhole on our property. At this time, we believe some of that impacted stormwater made its way to an outfall which discharges into Tampa Bay.”

Mosaic said the issue was addressed on 10 October and is not continuing but added that the volume may have been greater than the 17,500-gallon reporting standard.

“We expect water quality impacts, if any, to be modest. We’ve been in constant communication with regulators who are onsite today,” Mosaic said.

Florida environmental authorities have not made any statement but ahead of the storm had said they were preparing and would have all resources available to oversee the regulated facilities and operations.