Urgency on Piney Point Dissipating Much Faster than Its Toxic Water

When the long-impending disaster at Piney Point finally came to fruition this spring, elected officials from top to bottom used the tragedy as an opportunity to puff out their chests and bloviate as to what they would and wouldn't stand for. Mere months after the catastrophic breach led to a discharge of nitrogen-rich water into the bay, the sense of urgency seems to have waned, even as dead fish continue to foul our beaches and waterways, and algal blooms continue to persist.

Piney Point is a former phosphate processing facility that has been out of operation for decades, its original owner having filed bankruptcy and subsequently abandoning the site, leaving it to be managed by the state. Its massive stacks of toxic water have been a ticking time bomb ever since. However, one after another, plans and ideas to deal with the mess were made and then aborted, the can forever kicked down the road, even as the continuous accumulation of rainwater in the ponds of the stacks threatened their viability.

After a leak was discovered in late March, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued an emergency order authorizing the release of up to 480 million gallons of wastewater from one of the phosphogypsum stacks and its reservoirs into a channel at Port Manatee in order to avoid a total breach of the stack. Days later, the stack was breached and on-site crews worked ceaselessly to control the outflow of between 2 and 3 million gallons of water per day.The public was assured at the time that FDEP was onsite and would remain at work until the stacks were completely drained and capped, at which point the site would be closed permanently.

The nitrogen-rich waters have already made a mess of Tampa Bay and portions of the Gulf of Mexico with red tide surging and increases in Lyngbya, while cyanobacteria levels continue to rise. A consortium of conservation groups has filed suit with the governor, the acting secretary of FDEP, site owner HRK Holdings, and the Manatee County Port Authority.

To the shock of those in attendance at this week's Council of Governments meeting, Manatee County Administrator Scott Hopes, who literally came on board the day of the breach and deserves credit for his management of the catastrophe, especially under those circumstances, said that FDEP has essentially backed off and were giving control back to HRK Holdings, the company bought the site while it was under state control and after its operations had long been shuttered. Hopes said that FDEP was "still monitoring" the site but was "ratcheting down on HRK to deliver to them a plan on how they’re managing this." In other words, they've returned to the same posture as before the most recent calamity.

FDEP, which had been updating a webpage dedicated to the disaster on a near-daily basis, went silent in early July and only resumed updates this week, the day after Hopes' update, essentially echoing his talking points. An update Thursday read:

"Today, the department took a pivotal step to ensure this is the final chapter for the Piney Point site and fulfill the agency's charge and dedication to holding HRK accountable. This action enforces compliance with the state’s environmental laws and all of HRK’s existing authorizations, orders, and agreements with the department. The department is seeking the maximum allowable penalties and recovery of costs and damages under existing laws and regulations.

"DEP’s priority continues to be the protection of human health and safety and the minimization of any potential impacts to the environment. We are committed to maintaining stringent regulatory oversight of activities at the site as we move forward with this enforcement action.

"The ultimate goal remains closure of the site once and for all. We are confident the court-appointed receivership requested through this complaint will pave the way to expediting this process."

That seems a bit different from we're here and we're not leaving until this site is permanently closed. It also bears mentioning that it was FDEP who sought a private-sector solution when HRK, a hedge fund subsidiary, purchased the property in 2006, hoping to perform reclamation and then sell the land for port-adjacent development.

That got the state, who'd been in charge of the abandoned site, somewhat off the hook. But it didn't work, and any notion that a private company that bought what you might call a pig in a poke is going to manage an adequate final solution has already played out as the pipe dream it was way back then.

The problem with Piney Point is that everyone wants to take credit for managing its frequent disasters, but no one wants to do the hard work of coming up with, funding, and executing a viable long-term solution. Meanwhile, it's summer, so the weather keeps raining and the water in the stacks continues to rise, while other threats, such as the discharge of "partially treated" sewage by the City of Bradenton into the Manatee River this week, in one of the all too frequent "bypasses" that occur during heavy summer rains, compound the issue.

The Piney Point issue also speaks to the way in which elected officials have all but abandoned the long-lost art of actual policymaking and public administration, in favor of the low-brow, unproductive act of ratcheting up the culture wars for the sake of political benefits. It's easy to fight over whether people should get a vaccine during a pandemic or children should be protected while at school because you can gin up half of the state with an argument in either direction.

Unfortunately, there's no such dynamic with environmental disasters. Everyone would like to see Piney Point resolved. No one, however, seems to have the vision, stamina, or leadership skills to execute such an endeavor. Listen closely, folks, and I think you'll hear another can rolling down the well-worn road.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of ourweekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. His 4th novel, Burn Black Wall Street Burn, was recently released and is availablehere.