BOCC Asks State for Deep Well Injection at Piney Point

MANATEE COUNTY – At Tuesday’s meeting, Manatee County Commissioners voted 6-1 to express a preference to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that it use deep-well injection to dispose of the toxic mess left by a former phosphate mining site at Piney Point, near Port Manatee.

The vote would change the county's previously-approved legislative priorities issued to the state to express the preference. The site, which was shut down after the owner filed for bankruptcy and has passed through multiple owners since, has a phosphogypsum stack that contains radium, ammonia, phosphorus, and heavy metals.

The county initially attempted to do a deep well injection site, applying for a permit in 2013, but the application was withdrawn in 2016, following intense public opposition to putting the toxic water into the aquifer. While deep well injection has been used elsewhere, including in Manatee County, Piney Point would mark the first time phosphogypsum waste would be injected into the Lower Floridan aquifer, which includes the lower part of the Avon Park Formation, the Oldsmar Limestone, and the upper part of the Cedar Keys Formation.

Glenn Compton, who heads the environmental group Manasota 88, said his group is opposed to the precedent and expressed their rationale in a recent op/ed, which can be seen here. To better understand Piney Point’s history, click here.