RT Journal Article
T1 Pollutant pathways from a phosphogypsum disposal area to an estuarine environment: An insight from geochemical signatures
A1 Macías Suárez, Francisco
A1 Pérez Moreno, Silvia María
A1 Miguel Sarmiento, Aguasanta
A1 Ruiz Cánovas, Carlos
A1 Pérez López, Rafael
AB This paper reports about the contamination potential of the phosphogypsum stack from fertilizer industry on the Estuary of Huelva (SW Spain). Inside the waste pile (ca. 1200 ha and 100 Mt), highly polluted acid porewaters flows up to the edge of the stack, emerging as small fluvial courses, known as edge outflows, which discharge directly into the estuary. The disposal area is divided into four zones; two unrestored zones with surface ponds of industrial process water and two a priori already-restored zones. Preliminary restoration actions and those planned for the future prioritize removal of ponded process water and cover of the phosphogypsumwith artificial topsoil. These actions presuppose that the ponded process water percolates through the porousmedium towards the edge up to reach the estuary. Accordingly, the already-restored zones would not produce pollution on the ecological receptors. However, this study reveals by using geochemical tracers such as rare earth elements (REE) and Cl/Br ratios that this statement is far from reality. An extensive sampling of edge outflows conducted in the perimeter of the four phosphogypsum zones demonstrates the high potential of contamination of the whole stack, including those zones that were supposedly restored. These solutions are characterized, onaverage, by a pH value of 1.94 and concentrations of 6111 mg/L for P, 1967 mg/L for S, 617 mg/L for F, 205 mg/L for NH4 +, 125 mg/L for Fe, 28.5 mg/L for Zn, 16.6 mg/L for As, 9.52 mg/L for U, 7.02 mg/L for Cr, 4.27 mg/L for Cu, 3.62 mg/L for Cd, among others. These findings should lead to an immediate change of future restoration plans and improve the preliminary already taken mitigation measures.
PB Elsevier
SN 1879-1026 (electrónico)
SN 0048-9697
YR 2016
FD 2016
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24841
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/24841
LA eng
NO Rafael Pérez-López, Francisco Macías, Carlos Ruiz Cánovas, Aguasanta Miguel Sarmiento, Silvia María Pérez-Moreno, Pollutant flows from a phosphogypsum disposal area to an estuarine environment: An insight from geochemical signatures, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 553, 2016, Pages 42-51, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.070.
NO his work was supported by the Government of Andalusia through the research project ‘Phosphogypsum: from the environmental assessment as a waste to its revaluation as a resource (P12-RNM-2260)’. R. Pérez-López also thanks the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the ‘Ramón y Cajal Subprogramme’ (MICINN-RYC 2011). C.R. Cánovas was funded by the European Union's Seventh Framework Program, Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and the Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Science and Employment of the Junta de Andalucia by the program TalentHub (COFUND - Grant Agreement 291780
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026