U.S. Water News Online
PINEY POINT, Fla. -- The state of Florida is trying to clean up the Piney Point fertilizer plant, spraying millions of gallons of wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico to try to avert what one state regulator calls ``one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history.''
State officials knew in 1995 that the owner, Mulberry Corp., was struggling and if it went under, the state would be stuck with hundreds of millions of gallons of acidic wastewater in gypsum stacks on the edge of Tampa Bay.
But according to a review of files by the St. Petersburg Times, the state didn't act on warnings that the company was in trouble and didn't do enough to prevent an environmental hazard.
State officials fear the wastewater will spill into Tampa Bay, destroying plant and animal life for miles.
So this week they plan to treat the waste, load it on a barge, and spray it into the Gulf of Mexico at an estimated cost of $140 million.
Critics -- including some in the phosphate industry -- say the Department of Environmental Protection didn't go after the company soon enough.
``Did they have enough authority to shut Piney Point down? I think they did,'' said Bob Hugli of the Florida Phosphate Council. ``I don't know why they waited so long.''
But DEP Deputy Secretary Allan Bedwell said regulators did all they could under state law.
The plant is in Manatee County, a mile from Bishop Harbor on Tampa Bay.
Production of phosphate fertilizer creates a radioactive byproduct called phosphogypsum, which is stacked into sandy mountains. The stacks form dikes, creating holding ponds for radioactive water that is another byproduct of fertilizer manufacturing. Piney Point's two phosphogypsum stacks -- the walls of the ponds -- are 50 to 70 feet high.
The biggest potential danger is that heavy rains will overflow the holding ponds, sending untreated radioactive water into the watershed that runs into the bay.
When a fertilizer plant is running, the plant reuses the water and rainfall isn't usually a threat to create a spill. But Piney Point was idle for much of the 1990s, requiring continuous use of pumps to keep water at safe levels. If the pumps fail, the water would likely overflow.
In 1991, one DEP official suggested going to court to close the ponds, the newspaper found. But the state didn't. In 1993, new owners Mulberry took over and promised to restart production, but didn't.
State rules say a stack that sits idle for more than a year should be closed permanently, the water drained and the top covered. But DEP never enforced the rule at Piney Point because the company promised to revive the plant.
Several times the company managed to avoid having to clean up the stacks, promising to revive production. But by January 2000 Mulberry had shut down all operations.
A DEP inspection in late December 2000 found Piney Point on the verge of having its power cut off for nonpayment. No power meant no pumps circulating the water. Still, DEP did nothing, the paper reported.
DEP attorney Jonathan Alden denied his agency bent rules to allow the company to keep from cleaning up the stacks despite warnings that its finances were in bad shape.
In July 2001, after Mulberry's bankruptcy had forced DEP to take over the cleanup, engineers warned Piney Point couldn't handle a heavy storm. Then, heavy rain from Tropical Storm Gabrielle inundated the area, and DEP dumped millions of gallons of waste, with elevated levels of acid and nitrogen, into Bishop Harbor.
After a tropical storm in 2002 dumped 16 inches of rain, the stack was closer to spilling its waste water and in January 2003, DEP said it was considering dumping the waste into the Gulf as the only way to lower the level before hurricane season filled Piney Point to the breaking point.
DEP says it's more expensive than just dumping it into the harbor nearby, because it will carry the water far out into the Gulf and disperse over a wide area to dilute it.
``DEP is willing to pay a higher price for Gulf dispersion to protect lives and the environment,'' Bedwell wrote in one document cited by the paper.
In April, the EPA agreed to dumping the water from barges.
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