County include Alafia River State Park, Alderman's Ford Regional Park, Lithia Springs Regional Park, the Alafia Scrub Nature Preserve and the Riverview Civic Center. Williams Park and Mosaic Park are on the river near its mouth. The Alafia River Reserve is in Polk County near Mulberry. Phosphate spills In 1997 a dam atop a gypsum stack at a Mulberry Phosphates fertilizer plant broke, spilling 56 million gallons of acidic wastewater into the North Fork of the Alafia. Virtually everything in the 42 miles between Mulberry and Hillsborough Bay was killed. In addition to killing millions of fish and hundreds of acres of vegetation, the spill dumped 350 tons of nitrogen into Tampa Bay. Rather than pay fines, Mulberry Phosphates declared bankruptcy. Five years later, only $3.7 million was recovered from the company's insurance company. In 2002, Mosaic took over maintenance of the stack. In 2007, the cost of closing both stacks was estimated to be $48 million, which will be paid to Mosaic by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. After closure, Mosaic will be responsible for maintaining the stacks for the next 50 years. In 2016 an additional 215 million gallons entered the aquifer through the stack through a sinkhole. Mosaic publicly stated that no additional water would be released into the Alafia, but soon thereafter started diluting and releasing additional water contaminated with phosphates into the river. Literature Jules Verne used the Alafia as the site of the fictional moon launch in his 1865 novel From the Earth to the Moon. He described the moon shot taking place from 1,800-foot bluffs overlooking the Alafia, around what is now today's Bell Shoals Nature Preserve. References Rivers of Florida Rivers of Hillsborough County, Florida Rivers of Polk County, Florida Tributaries of Tampa Bay