Legislative Findings

TITLE 39 HEALTH AND SAFETY CHAPTER 1 ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY — HEALTH 39-176A. LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS. The legislature finds that: (1)  A domestic supply of phosphate fertilizers is critical to our nation’s food security and Idaho’s agricultural economy; (2)  The production of phosphoric acid is a key ingredient in phosphate fertilizers and, given Idaho’s rich supply of phosphate rock, the state is home to phosphoric acid production facilities; (3)  Phosphogypsum is a calcium sulfate by-product produced by the reaction of sulfuric acid with phosphate rock to produce phosphoric acid and is disposed of and placed in phosphogypsum stacks near phosphoric acid production facilities; (4)  The United States congress and the environmental protection agency exempted certain high-volume, low-toxicity solid wastes, including phosphogypsum and process water from phosphoric acid production, from regulation as a hazardous waste under subtitle C of the resource conservation and recovery act (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.), as amended; and (5)  To both facilitate and encourage the continued manufacturing of phosphate fertilizers, and to benefit the surface water and groundwater environmental resources, the legislature recognizes the need for proper design and construction of phosphogypsum stacks and phosphogypsum stack systems.