Florida law requires radiation surveys in phosphate mining lawsuits

The Department of Health must survey a former phosphate land parcel when a current landowner petitions for one. The parcel must be land where phosphate mining was conducted and may have been subject to a radiation survey and state reclamation requirements. A phosphogypsum stack is not a former phosphate mine under this section. The department must conduct the first survey within 120 days after receiving the petition and share preliminary results within 30 days after completing it. The owner may request one additional survey within 60 days after receiving the results; the department must conduct it within 90 days after receiving the request.

A plaintiff must file a radiation survey with the complaint in a covered phosphate mining-related civil action. This applies to civil claims about alleged hazardous substance discharges, pollution, mining waste or overburden, or other claims related to phosphate rock mining or land reclamation. A certified health physicist or radiation protection technologist must prepare the survey. It must document representative gamma radiation measurements, background values, locations, equipment, methods, calibration, and the surveyor's qualifications, and be verified under penalty of perjury. The survey must be filed with the complaint.

A landowner may record notice that property is a former phosphate mine; a person may use a defense in certain pollution claims if notice and a health department survey exist. A landowner may record the notice in the county's official records for property where phosphate mining was conducted; a phosphogypsum stack is excluded from the definition. The defense applies only when the condition behind the claim is a natural geological substance of a former phosphate mine and the occurrence was solely the result of that substance, alone or with other listed causes. Notice must be recorded and the Department of Health must have conducted a survey. The law took effect July 1, 2026.