BRADENTON — Manatee County Commission Chair Tal Siddique urged fellow commissioners on Tuesday to support a motion to pause and defer action on a consent agenda item related to the ongoing closure of the former phosphate processing site at Piney Point, saying additional information from county staff was needed before moving forward.
Tuesday's agenda item was not the first involving CIP Solutions to be pulled from a consent agenda in recent months. In April, Commissioner Bob McCann questioned another contract-related item involving the company, which operates the former Piney Point wastewater treatment facility under an agreement with Manatee County. Former Deputy County Administrator Courtney De Pol left the county government in April and now serves as chief revenue officer at CIP Solutions. De Pol’s employment with the company was not discussed during Tuesday's meeting.
Siddique pointed to multiple key pieces of information and details that were not readily prepared and provided with Tuesday’s agenda item, which sought board approval for an amendment to the existing agreement with CIP Solutions—as contemplated in the original agreement—to formally recognize the operational transition from the drawdown phase to the long-term seepage phase, and to revise the fee rate schedule to a tiered million gallons per day rate.
The Piney Point pretreatment plant, or the Buckeye UIC Pretreatment Plant, is where wastewater high in nitrogen and phosphorus stored in the phosphogypsum stacks of the former processing site is treated before being pumped into a deep injection well for disposal. The "drawing down" of the water held in the stacks was an important first step toward a final closure of the site following a wastewater breach and release in 2021.
Opening the item for discussion, Siddique explained his rationale for recommending it be tabled.
“Here’s why,” he began. “In my briefing, this item was missing quite a bit of information that I didn’t get until pretty late in the game yesterday.”
Siddique highlighted how he and other commissioners were not elected to the commission until after the Piney Point response and closure plan was already in place, leaving them without pertinent information regarding the timeline, agreements, and the county’s responsibilities and liabilities.
“There’s just a lot of missing information,” he continued, stating that a lack of legal review by the county attorney’s office of the draft contract was a “red flag” for him. “I think this absolutely should have had a legal review,” he added.
The agenda item cover sheet was notably sparse on details, as Siddique pointed out. The background information consisted of just three sentences, and the item’s attachments were also lacking.
Missing information included the lack of attachment of the current contract with CIP Solutions, as well as the existing fee schedule proposed for revision. There was also no explicit documentation of funding needs or funding sources, nor any explanation of an existing receivership balance fund that staff stated during the meeting could be used to fund the ongoing seepage phase.
Besides missing information, according to the agenda item coversheet, the contract amendment and renewal were brought forward by Utilities Department staff, and not by procurement staff.
Siddique also questioned why an agreement with the court-appointed receivership of Piney Point was referenced in the agenda documents, but a copy of that agreement was not provided for board review.
“The basic question I ask is, why is John Taxpayer paying for the treatment of the water from the facility that we do not own or have any direct control over?” pressed Siddique.
Utilities Deputy Director of Treatment Facilities, Chris Collins, told commissioners that while the stacks at Piney Point are “basically empty,” the contract is to transition into the next phase.
Information provided on CIP Solutions’ website echoes Collins’ statement. The company says that Piney Point process water ponds were emptied in late November 2025, and the company is now only treating seepage and captured rainfall.
Addressing the board, Collins said, “This is a request from CIP Solutions to acknowledge that the project has moved into the seepage phase, and based on that contractual agreement, they get to adjust the fee based on that phase.”
He also explained the role of the receivership. “They’re the ones that kind of oversee everything going out there at the well. They’re holding money, and then we request that money from them to continue the operation of this well.” Collins added that the receivership account currently holds about $6.5 million that can be drawn on to continue payments to CIP Solutions.
Despite the information provided by Collins, Siddique remained concerned about the proposal.
“I was provided information by staff that the money the receivership is paying us is well below the actual cost of the treatment, so that’s a problem. We’re getting screwed on the treatment, essentially,” he said. “So why are we paying for this?”
To respond to Siddique, Deputy County Administrator Dr. Corey Stutte stepped to the podium. Stutte, who joined Manatee County in 2025, stated that staff consulted the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for background information while preparing the agenda item.
Stutte said the next phase would be funded through the county's general fund once the $6.5 million set aside by the receivership is exhausted. He added that utilities staff and county administration are still working to determine how CIP Solutions would be paid for the remaining operations under the long-term care phase.
“We do need to figure that out,” he said. “I think we need to continue to have discussions with folks up in Tallahassee to figure out how to pay for this.”
Claudia Campos, the county's interim CFO, confirmed that, despite prior verbal commitments, the state had not provided funds to the county to support the closure of Piney Point. Campos said that $19.5 million received from the receivership had been "chewed up" by expenditures totaling $42.8 million, leaving a $23.4 million shortage to date, and said that the county’s general fund had “absorbed" those shortages.
Given everything presented, Commissioner McCann agreed with Siddique’s proposal to defer the item until additional information could be brought forward. However, staff cautioned that a delay in the amendment's approval could pose a risk, and some commissioners agreed.
Speaking to his recollection of discussions from years prior, Commissioner George Kruse shared, “We were told that the state or HRK (the bankrupt company that owned Piney Point) could put this well in themselves, and we were effectively told that they would get their money back by monetizing that well.”
He added that a company in the vicinity of the injection well, Allied Chemical, had approached the county expressing interest in using the well for the disposal of their private wastewater, and that the then county attorney informed commissioners that the only way to prevent the Piney Point well from being used for private disposal was for the county to take ownership of its operation.
“Our decision was to put the water from Piney Point into the well and to then cap it permanently. That’s why we have ownership of this well,” said Kruse. “It was a decision not to turn over a well we felt could be detrimental to our future water quality if someone tries to recoup their money.”
Though Kruse didn’t touch on it in his comments, Manatee County ultimately struck a deal with Allied Chemical to allow the bleach manufacturer to dispose of its brine wastewater in a county-owned injection well—just not at Piney Point.
Allied reached an agreement with Manatee County to dispose of its waste roughly 9 miles from the coast, at the Buffalo Creek injection well at the North Regional Water Reclamation Facility. You can read more about that here and here.
“We can’t walk away from this,” said Commissioner Mike Rahn, expanding upon Kruse’s points. “We have to do this. We can’t just throw our arms up in the air and tell the state, ‘Here ya go, it’s all yours now.’ We need to continue to monitor this and continue to work with CIP.”
Rahn added that there were two issues: the continued operations led by CIP, and securing funds and/or reimbursement from the state.
“It’s important to get this done today so that maintaining operation of the well can continue and we can continue dumping clean water down there that’s coming over from Piney Point… we have to keep Piney Point operational.”
When Commissioner Amanda Ballard asked staff what might happen if the board did not move the item forward during Tuesday’s meeting, and instead deferred to gather more information and to give staff time to approach the state for funding support, Collins replied, “From the utilities standpoint, that’s the scary part.”
Collins suggested that if operations were to be interrupted, CIP Solutions might “walk away” as the rainy season approaches, which could deposit more water on the site that would need to be disposed of.
County Administrator Charlie Bishop, who served as deputy county administrator during the 2021 Piney Point emergency and subsequent closure planning efforts, was seated at the dais for the duration of the proceeding. He did not comment on the matter or address the board during the discussion.
Before making a motion to approve the item, Kruse added, “I am not going to be the next board to kick Piney Point down the road for 10 years and risk dumping insane amounts of bleach and chemicals down this well, close to our coastline, just because we want to wait for the state first.”
Rahn seconded the motion.
Put to a vote, the item failed in a 3-3 tie, with Commissioners Kruse, Rahn, and Ballard voting in support and Commissioners Siddique, McCann, and Bearden voting in opposition. District 1 remains unrepresented since the passing of Carol Felts.
With the motion failing, McCann proposed a second motion to defer the item for roughly two weeks, saying, “Until such time the county can provide all the information that it has in its possession … I hear everything everyone is saying, and I do appreciate it, but I want to see the documents in two weeks.”
After additional discussion, commissioners expanded their direction to staff, instructing them to return with a draft contract that uses the remaining receivership funds, protects general funds to support operations, and reopens discussions with the state regarding additional financial assistance.
The motion passed unanimously, 6-0, and the item with additional information will return to commissioners for future consideration on June 16.
According to the company’s website, former deputy administrator Courtney De Pol, who began in her role at the company immediately after leaving the county on April 3, leads the company’s “growth strategy, strategic partnerships, and market expansion for advanced water treatment and environmental technologies. Her work focuses on helping utilities, industrial clients, and governments address complex water challenges—including reuse, capacity limitations, and emerging contaminants such as PFAS—through innovative, scalable solutions.”
The CIP Solutions item before the board on April 7 was approved unanimously after being pulled from the consent agenda. With that vote, the board approved a long-term care proposal as an extension of the existing services agreement with CIP.
The proposal, which was prepared by CIP Solutions and recorded with the item on the company’s letterhead, appropriated an additional $1,296,446 of revenue to the general fund for repairs at the pretreatment plant.
The item was presented without attorney review, as the coversheet stated that staff had simply utilized the original service agreement for the added infrastructure funding.
During the item discussion, staff told commissioners that while the county would fund the initial cost through its general fund, the receivership would reimburse the county.
To replay the June 2 CIP Solutions item discussion, click the video below.
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