The focus has shifted, but it’s not over.
Day-to-day management and operations at the defunct Piney Point phosphate plant in Manatee County are being transferred Aug. 26 to a court-appointed receiver.
The company to assume oversight was not named in an Aug. 26 statement from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which in early August sued Piney Point’s management, HRK Holdings LLC, over operations at the site.
A separate lawsuit over pollution from the plant, filed in federal court by a consortium of conservation groups, named the DEP, the governor and the Manatee County Port Authority as defendants.
The legal battles began after the DEP authorized the release of 215 million gallons of wastewater from Piney Point into the Tampa Bay estuary earlier this year. The nutrient-rich wastewater likely contributed to the summer’s red tide outbreak and subsequent fish kills.
Stacks of toxic waste that resulted from fertilizer production remain at Piney Point, along with millions of gallons of process wastewater, stormwater and dredged spoil.
The focus now is to plan the eventual closure of the site and, until then, avoid further discharges by treating ponded wastewater, trucking away wastewater and monitoring rainfall.
“DEP will continue performing its stringent regulatory oversight of the facility to ensure the closure of Piney Point,” read a statement from the department. “The priority remains to pursue all available water management tools to ensure safe storage capacities for the remainder of the rainy season.”
— Lisa Neff