Most information is coming from Manatee County and the Department of Environmental Protection. 941-745-7095. The leaking abandoned chemical plant may now have a … If we have a collapse of either of those two stacks, we’re going to have a significantly different environmental impact. Madison Hall,Yelena Dzhanova. Octavio Jones/Getty WFTS. And, in this case, a big hit to taxpayers’ pocketbooks in trying to solve this problem. The other two stacks apparently have a lot more toxicity in the water than the one that’s currently leaking. WFTS. The gyp stacks, surrounded by berms made of rock, soil and other materials, have recently held about 880 million gallons of water, which contains high levels of phosphorus and nitrates. The current one [at Piney Point] is 77 acres. Bradenton/Miami Herald found a previously unreported 2014 spill. The other two components that are most worrisome are the elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorous that are currently going through the breached stack. By clicking "Accept all" you agree that Verizon Media and our partners will store and/or access information on your device through the use of cookies and similar technologies and process your personal data, to display personalised ads and content, for ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Gov, DeSantis tours Piney Point. You can select 'Manage settings' for more information and to manage your choices. I don’t know if there are any new stacks being considered at this point, but they’re always expanding existing stacks up and out. Recommended Stories. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency Saturday after a significant leak … Nitrogen and phosphorous, if you put those into a water body, whether it be Tampa Bay, Bishop’s Harbor or Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, is adding fuel to the fire when it comes to to algal blooms. 16m52s. The liner at the top collects rainwater, so the idea is not to allow the water to go through the stack but to collect it in a pond on top of the stack. 05 apr 2021. Companies who owned this [plant] previously have gone bankrupt. According to the county and the state, the water that is being discharged does not have any radioactivity in it. To me, that would be disastrous. This water never would have been permitted to have been discharged offsite because of those elevated levels. Officials shut down possibility of 2nd leak in the toxic Piney Point reservoir in Florida. The Piney Point breach is impacting residents in the area. We have 24 other stacks throughout the state that most likely would want to use this technology to get rid of their wastewater. The owners of the abandoned mine property HRK Holdings LLC are at the center of the controversy and shoulder responsibility for the event they allowed to occur on their property. Apparently, what has happened is that the current owners [HRK Holdings] have not been able to get rid of rainwater fast enough. Engineers find leak and launch plans to clean dirty water April 08, 2021 3:43 PM Ryan Callihan. BBC. To have a breach at the bottom of a stack has to be the worst possible place for this to occur and that’s the reason for the evacuations. There’s been talk, even before this latest event, that deep well injection is the preferred alternative to get rid of wastewater. On Tuesday, at approximately 3:30 p.m., a low-level flow was observed from the concentrated seepage area on the east wall of NGS-South compartment. The question is: Once it's emptied, is that going to cause destabilization of the other two stacks? Drone discovers possible second leak at Piney Point as residents ordered to evacuate over toxic water threat. The price is the public’s health and the environmental impact. 1m49s. As this rainwater collects, it needs to be disposed of so it doesn’t fill up the stack, topple it over and cause erosion of the stack itself. Once you inject wastewater into the ground, you have no idea where it’s going to go next. He urged residents to follow evacuation orders in the areas affected by the ongoing leak and said residents can call 311 for information, follow @ManateeGov on Twitter or go to protectingfloridatogether.gov/PineyPoint for updates. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FLDEP) has announced that the toxic seepage from a plastic liner into the wastewater pond at the Piney Point phosphate plant has stopped. I have a lot of concerns about that. Burnout 2 Point Of Impact. A LEAK at a large pond of wastewater threatened to flood roads and burst a system that stores polluted waters in Florida. As the world watches what is happening at Piney Point, an abandoned phosphate plant in Manatee County that was built in 1966 and closed in 2001, Florida and our region face the environmental equivalent of a ticking time bomb. Manatee County residents who live around the Piney Point reservoir received an alert via text saying to leave the area immediately because the collapse was imminent. April 4, 2021, 8:28 PM. Piney Point leak impact on residents. Piney Point owner HRK Holdings blamed FDEP and contractors for the liner leak and spill of polluted water. The FLDEP has also reported that there is no second leak, despite earlier reports to the contrary. This is unprecedented. Piney Point has a long history of polluting the water and air around it, dating to when the plant was built in 1966, Compton says. That is necessary to avoid a full breach of the leaking Piney Point reservoir. On Saturday morning people within a half-mile radius of the site were asked to evacuate. The Piney Point property contains three, lined phosphogypsum stacks that serve as large retention ponds. That’s what happened when Mulberry Corporation went bankrupt [in 2001]. Gov. Evacuation alert issued for residents living near Piney Point in Manatee County. Click here to find out more about our partners. Information about your device and internet connection, including your IP address, Browsing and search activity while using Verizon Media websites and apps. The pond where the leak was discovered is at the old Piney Point phosphate mine, sitting in a stack of phosphogypsum, a waste product from manufacturing fertilizer that is radioactive. April 3, 2021, 9:21 PM. Over the years, we’ve tried to get information from the Department of Health about cancer clusters in phosphate regions. Is this the correct way to down-draw the water out of the stack? There’s no positive impact on groundwater. WFTS. Taxpayers ended up footing the bill for quite some time. Over decades, phosphate companies have dumped phosphogypsum, which is a byproduct of fertilizer production that has radioactivity in it and a number of other different chemical components that are toxic to the marine environment and any aquatic environment. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says the company is still working to prevent the leak. I don’t think we’ve seen a breach of this magnitude at the Piney Point site before. We have a lot more phosphate mining that is going to occur in the next 20 to 30 years. 1255 N. Gulfstream Avenue, Suite 101, Sarasota, FL 34236, Tiffany Tompkins/The Bradenton Herald via AP, read this award-winning story by journalist Craig Pittman, A New Book From a Sarasota Native Tells the Story of the Fight to Save the Everglades, Environmentalists Warn That Piney Point Pollution Could Affect Sarasota Bay, Environmentalists Call for Complete Cleanup and Closure of Piney Point, Piney Point Evacuation Leaves Residents and Business Owners Scared and Anxious. To my knowledge, there are no new stack locations being proposed. 8m32s. It’s a matter of how much goes in, how quickly it goes in and where it goes after that. Residents living close to the old Piney Point phosphate plant, north of Bradenton, near Tampa, have been asked to evacuate. It’s difficult to find that kind of information and a hard question to answer one way or the other. Representatives of the Florida D.E.P. Officials are concerned that the leak … Piney Point is just partially lined. The other concern I would have about that is that if it’s done here at Piney Point, it will be the first time it’s done in Florida to get rid of wastewater from a phosphogypsum stack. At this point, nobody really knows what to expect and what’s going to happen. A lot of agricultural interests in the area that rely on well water for their crops are rightfully concerned about deep well injection. PALMETTO, Fla. - Hundreds of residents around Piney Point have been asked to evacuate as 2-3 million gallons of water per day flow from a leak in a containment wall. Monitoring where the groundwater moves is an inexact science. Piney Point Lawsuit A lawsuit is one way homeowners can receive protection against damages associated with the sewage spill affecting residents of the Tampa Bay area. Piney Point’s history in Tampa Bay is long and messy. This [waste] can’t be used for anything. If you do detect it, what do you do? The Piney Point plant, closed in 2001, is still owned and maintained by HRK Holdings. We’re expecting that from the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous that is going to be discharged—and has already been discharged—we’ll see algal blooms in the Tampa Bay area. If you have a toxic plume that’s moving underground and it’s between two monitoring wells, you miss it and you never fully detect that there’s a problem. A leak of wastewater led to the evacuations Credit: Facebook Which areas have been evacuated? Piney Point phosphate plant is an industrial site in Manatee County, Florida, formerly the location of a fertilizer plant and currently owned by HRK Holdings, which leases portions of the land to industrial tenants under the name Eastport. HRK, in my opinion, will not survive this event. State officials said they first discovered the leak on Friday in one wall of the 77-acre pond. Families of Covid patients are pleading for … They just pile it up on top of an existing area. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. (For more background, read this award-winning story by journalist Craig Pittman, which details the expansion of phosphate mining in our region.). State Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on April 3 as officials ordered more than 300 homes to be evacuated.. A reservoir near the old Piney Point … Chauvin wrote attorney’s number on hand in case of guilty verdict, report says. Deep well injection project approved for Piney Point The construction agreement was given to Youngquist Brothers, Inc. and the project is restricted to not exceed $9,350,000. What’s next at Piney Point? This photo shows a reservoir near the old Piney Point phosphate mine on Saturday in Bradenton, Fla. Florida Gov. Certainly, you want to get the wastewater out of the existing stack, but once it's emptied, we don’t know what’s going to happen. The legacy we’ve learned from Piney Point is that there is no economically feasible or environmentally sound way to manage a phosphogypsum stack. There are over 30 tons per year being produced in the state of Florida and dumped in stacks. And there’s going to be a lot more phosphogypsum being produced. The strategy has been to stack it up over decades and to continue to go up. So they were asking for help from taxpayers to help alleviate the problem. Piney Point, the former phosphate mining facility that leaked millions of gallons of wastewater near Tampa Bay, … Most of the time there are liners under these ponds. As far as I know, there is no third party out there that is testing the water and posting the results. Piney Point leak prompts more evacuations. There’s a price to be paid. FamilyFriendlyGaming. 33s. ManaSota-88 chairman Glenn Compton talked to Sarasota Magazine about what he knows about the Piney Point leak and what’s at risk for human health and the environment. Image: Tiffany Tompkins/The Bradenton Herald via AP, ManaSota-88 has been advocating for Southwest Florida’s environment for 53 years and has been a longtime critic of the phosphate industry. A leak at Piney Point, the abandoned phosphate plant in Tampa Bay, threatening to cause a breach with the potential of unleashing hazardous water. Ron DeSantis on Sunday said that 316 homes had been evacuated and that safety notices had gone out to businesses. These are huge ponds. Recommended Stories. April 13, 2021 / 2:00 PM / CBS News. A leak at Piney Point has led to millions of gallons of contaminated water being released into the waters at Tampa Bay at Port Manatee. As the world watches what is happening at Piney Point, an abandoned phosphate plant in Manatee County that was built in 1966 and closed in 2001, … Residents around Piney Point facility advised to evacuate. The problem with algal blooms is it leads to fish kills. Hundreds of residents around Piney Point have been asked to evacuate as 2-3 million gallons of water per day flow from a leak in a containment wall. As the wastewater leak situation continues at the Piney Point reservoir, many are worried about the effects the water spilling out will have on Florida's wildlife, especially the West Indian manatee. They came to the [Manatee] County Commission a few months ago and said they were at a critical level where the stacks were filling up and they needed some help to get rid of the wastewater. The plant was built in 1966. Dive crews immediately arrived on-scene and identified a small detachment underneath the plate placed over the liner seam separation. More likely, if this company walks away, the [Department of Environmental Protection] will take ownership and manage this stack and that will cost taxpayers tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of dollars. That’s a difficult thing to do research on. The reservoir is located in the Tampa Bay area north of Bradenton. At the top of the stack, when it rains, water collects and ponds form. The Piney Point wastewater in question is primarily saltwater from the Port Manatee dredge project, mixed with legacy fertilizer production process water and rain. Officials say the stack collapsed further despite overnight efforts from state and local crews. That’s a politically hot topic. The Independent. In this photo is a general view of Frog Creek, located four miles from a possible wastewater breach at the former Piney Point phosphate plant on April 5, 2021 in Gillette, Florida. Piney Point leak prompts more evacuations. Yes. Dive Ops assessing low-level leak in Piney Point NGS-South. In the 1990s, the company then in charge, Mulberry Corp., foundered and later closed. Residents evacuated, US-41 closed, state of emergency declared as water continues flowing from Piney Point. The more water that goes into a stack, the heavier it becomes and the more likely it will collapse. India Covid crisis: Hospitals buckle under record surge. Once the groundwater is polluted, there’s no way to clean it up. [When rainwater] goes through the phosphogypsum stack, it picks up the components of the stack and pollutes the groundwater underneath. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Your Privacy Controls. Until we have someone who goes out and verifies that there is [or is not] radiation in the water, we can’t say one way or the other that that’s accurate. I’m skeptical, because it’s leaking through a phosphogypsum stack, and the phosphygypsum stack certainly has levels of radiation that would be concerning to anybody who would get exposure from water that comes off the site. Right now, they’re trying to avoid a catastrophic failure of one stack, but in the process, that might be setting up the failure of the other two stacks [on the site]. 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