Between 1953 and 1964, an estimated 150,000 acres of cattle land were abandoned as a result of the phosphate industry’s fluoride pollution, and 25,000 acres of citrus groves in the county were damaged. Truck crops were lost, and the commercial gladiolus industry in an adjacent county was blighted. In the seven-year period between 1953 and 1960, the cattle population of Polk County dropped 30,000 head.
