Gov. Ron DeSantis, state and local officials held a briefing in Manatee County Sunday morning regarding the threat of a catastrophic discharge from the old Piney Point phosphate plant. Officials fear a collapse that could release a rush of polluted water into the surrounding area — and then into Tampa Bay itself.
“What we’re looking at now is trying to prevent and respond to, if need be, a real catastrophic flood situation,” DeSantis said.
The governor addressed reports of radioactive wastewater, saying “To be clear the water being discharged to Port Manatee is not radioactive. It is primarily saltwater from the Port Manatee dredge project mixed with legacy process water and stormwater runoff. … The primary concern is nutrients.”
Dr. Scott Hopes, acting Manatee County administrator, said they are now down to 340 million gallons of water left to pump, and if there was a full breach, models show in less than an hour up to a 20 foot wall of water could form. He encouraged those in the current evacuation zone to heed the warning and leave their homes.
When asked about the staff and residents at the Manatee County Central Jail, which falls within the latest evacuation area, Hopes said those inside the building have been moved to the second floor of the facility, and sand bags had been placed around the outside of the building.
In regards to the future, Hopes said, “We won’t be repairing the liner, we will be depleting the holding ponds of their water and then we will be moving forward to a permanent solution into the future once we mitigate the current risk, which will probably include filling these ponds after they are devoid of their contents and capping them.”
Stay with tampabay.com for more updates from this morning’s press conference.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, state and local officials speaking from Manatee County Sunday
Evacuation orders remained in effect Sunday morning for the area around the Piney Point reservoir. About 6 p.m. Saturday, the county announced that it was expanding the evacuation area to cover an estimated 316 homes, citing the possibility of a “large-scale breach.”
5 questions answered on Piney Point
Environment reporter Zachary T. Sampson explains what a phosphogypsum stack is, what is being discharged into Tampa Bay from Piney Point and more in this quick explainer of questions surrounding the Piney Point leak.
Reporting on Piney Point from the Times Archives
From a July 2003 story in the St. Petersburg Times: “A top state regulator calls Piney Point ‘one of the biggest environmental threats in Florida history.’ State officials fear the waste will spill into Tampa Bay, killing millions of fish and destroying plant life for miles.”
Read more from “Bending the rules at Piney Point: A $140 million mess”
Saturday: In the evacuation zone, but not going anywhere
![Kenneth Rexford, 76, and his wife Elaine, 73, said Saturday evening they had no plans to leave their home in the Gillette Groves subdivision in Palmetto despite the mandatory evacuation order.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"%20viewBox="0%200%204032%203024"/%3E "Kenneth Rexford, 76, and his wife Elaine, 73, said Saturday evening they had no plans to leave their home in the Gillette Groves subdivision in Palmetto despite the mandatory evacuation order.")
Kenneth Rexford, 76, and his wife Elaine, 73, said Saturday evening that they had no plans to heed the evacuation order and leave their home in the Gillette Groves subdivision near Moccasin Wallow Road and S Tamiami Trail.
They’re aware of the environmental hazards if the old Piney Point phosphate plant breaches. But it’s been a problem for so long now that Kenneth Rexford wonders if residents have just grown accustomed to the risks — and are baffled as to why local and state leaders haven’t done more to fix it.
Here’s what else the couple had to say to a Tampa Bay Times reporter.
• • •
Saturday: ‘The imminent threat is public health.’
![This overhead photo shows a reservoir near the old Piney Point phosphate mine on Saturday. Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency because officials fear a significant leak at a large pond of wastewater could burst and flood the nearby region.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"%20viewBox="0%200%202000%201174"/%3E "This overhead photo shows a reservoir near the old Piney Point phosphate mine on Saturday. Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency because officials fear a significant leak at a large pond of wastewater could burst and flood the nearby region.")
Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Noah Valenstein, who traveled to Tampa Bay on Saturday to address the deteriorating Piney Point situation, spoke to the Tampa Bay Times.
“I don’t want to forecast what could happen,” he said. “But the county’s mandated evacuation should be taken seriously.”
Wastewater, Valenstein said, was flowing to Port Manatee at a rate of about 35 million gallons a day. Environmental regulators will monitor water quality to track the effect of those discharges into Tampa Bay over time. Valenstein said his focus is on the immediate danger.
“We can take care of nutrients in the environment,” he said. “The bay is resilient, we can monitor and enforce and hold the company accountable.
“The imminent threat is public health.”
An outside engineer working with HRK Holdings on Thursday told Manatee commissioners that the plastic liner in the reservoir had “a long-documented history of ... having problems.” State records show the company reported small cracks above the water line multiple times in the last year.
Asked about those reports, Valenstein said the site is “highly regulated,” with operators required to provide reports from inspections.
“There were obviously tears above the water line that were noticed and immediately patched,” he said. “That’s the ongoing process with a liner system.”
But the secretary said the historic pattern of Piney Point suffering problems and being passed between owners now “has to stop.”
“We have to enforce against the company, capture all the environmental impacts and make sure this site is closed,” Valenstein said.
• • •
Saturday: Manatee phosphate plant collapse ‘imminent’
PALMETTO — Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in Manatee County on Saturday as officials fear an “imminent” collapse at the old Piney Point phosphate plant.
The situation grew more dire as crews attempted to shore up a breach in a wall around a 480-million gallon wastewater reservoir that has been leaking for days. They used front-end loaders, excavators and dump trucks to pile dirt over the breach.
But at 10:30 a.m. Saturday the on-site engineers “deemed the situation to be escalating,” said Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur. One containment wall shifted to the side, he said, signaling a structural collapse could happen at any time.
Read more about how the situation at Pine Point grew dire on Saturday.
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