Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA, 2012
Edward Burtynsky, Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA, 2006, pigment inkjet print on Kodak Professional photo paper, 148.59 x 198.12 cm (image/sheet).
The city of Lakeland lies midway between Tampa and Orlando in Central Florida. Mildly radioactive and highly acidic, the whitish grey phosphogypsum seen here is the toxic waste by-product of phosphate mining. For over a century, it has been accumulating in enormous tailings ponds, some spanning thousands of acres. Florida is especially rich in phosphate deposits—formed from the compressed remains of prehistoric fish and plankton that settled on the bottom of the shallow sea that covered much of the state millions of years ago. These vast containment reservoirs now compete for space with citrus groves, cattle ranches, and encroaching suburban sprawl.
Edward Burtynsky, Phosphor Tailings Ponds #3, Polk County, Florida, USA, 2012.
Despite its toxic subject, the surface of Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA, appears decorative and even serene. The composition resembles gestural abstraction: a balance of richly textured strokes and smooth expanses shaded in high-contrast hues of chalky white and stylish green. But the harmony is deceptive. What appears painterly and complementary is in fact a grave environmental hazard. Phosphogypsum contains heavy metals like iron, cadmium, and chromium, along with sulfuric and phosphoric acids. When exposed to air and water, it oxidizes and promotes algal growth, forming the thick biomass slurry that swirls on the pond’s surface.
Burtynsky’s digital camera, capable of capturing millions of pixels, results in prints of exceptional clarity. This optical precision gives his photographs a tactile quality—a quasi-sculptural presence—that intensifies their impact. A bulldozer, dwarfed by the scale of the landscape, offers compositional balance, a sense of proportion, and a reminder of the human actors behind the transformation of the land.
These ponds are not stable. Their acidic water can breach containment during storms, such as Florida’s frequent hurricanes, contaminating nearby ecosystems and threatening the Floridan aquifer from which over ten million people get their drinking water. Sinkholes occasionally form beneath the settled waste, abruptly draining toxins into the groundwater. Burtynsky’s elegant picture is only fleetingly consoling. More difficult to see in reproduction, are the alligators basking blithely here and there along the edge of the sinister pond.
Gallery
Edward Burtynsky, Railcuts #1, C.N. Track, Skihist Provincial Park, British Columbia, 1985, chromogenic colour print on paper, 68.7 x 86.6 cm (image).
Edward Burtynsky, Carrara Marble Quarries #24 & #25, Carrara, Italy (diptych), 1993, chromogenic colour print on paper, 68.2 x 86.2 cm (image); 76.4 x 101.4 cm (image), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Edward Burtynsky, Nickel Tailings #34 & #35, Sudbury, Ontario (diptych), 1996, chromogenic colour print on paper, 80.7 x 111.1 cm (sheet); 80.7 x 111.1 cm (sheet), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Edward Burtynsky, Oxford Tire Pile #8, Westley, California, USA, 1999, chromogenic colour print on paper, 28.6 x 37.8 cm (image); 40.7 x 5.7 cm (sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Shipbreaking #13, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2000, chromogenic colour print on paper, 43.6 x 55.88 cm (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Wan Zhou #2, Three Gorges Dam Project, Yangtze River, China, 2002, chromogenic colour print on paper, 68.6 x 86.4 (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, SOCAR Oil Fields #3, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006.
Edward Burtynsky, Breezewood, Pennsylvania, USA, 2008.
Edward Burtynsky, Pivot Irrigation #7, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA, 2011, chromogenic colour print on paper, 107.2 x 304.8 cm (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Phosphor Tailings Pond #4, Near Lakeland, Florida, USA, 2006, pigment inkjet print on Kodak Professional photo paper, 148.59 x 198.12 cm (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Pengah Wall #1, Komodo National Park, Indonesia, 2017, pigment inkjet print on Kodak Professional photo paper, 121.9 x 218.4 cm (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Tailings Pond #2, Wasselton Diamond Mine, Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, 2018, pigment inkjet print on Kodak Professional photo paper, 99 x 132.08 cm (image/sheet).
Edward Burtynsky, Natural Order #33, Grey County, Ontario, Canada, Spring, 2020.
Edward Burtynsky, In the Wake of Progress, 2022.