Eagle 8 flew over the huge chasm in the earth and spotted a cascading waterfall in the middle of what looks like a moonscape. The occurred in the New Wales plant off Highway 640, south of Mulberry.

The sinkhole opened up almost three weeks ago. Since then, about 215 million gallons of contaminated water have been drained into the aquifer. The sinkhole was nearly 40 feet.

It sits right in the middle of a massive gypsum stack. Gypsum came out of the plant after the company produced phosphate fertilizers and animal feed ingredients.

On Aug. 27 workers monitoring water levels discovered a drop. David Jellerson, Mosaic’s director of environment and phosphate projects said, “When it was first noticed, we installed pumping systems to move water out of that compartment on the gypsum stack, to recover the water,” .

The water has been contaminated with phosphoric acid and is slightly radioactive. Not all of it is being caught by pumps.

Near the gypsum stack, Mosaic has monitoring wells. Jellerosn said, “We’re confident that the wells we started up are capturing that water pulling it back,” .

He said that the closest homeowners, who are all several miles away, can still use their water without worry, but if they have concerns, Mosaic will test it.

By Prakriti Neogi