The discharge of about 4 million gallons of stormwater into Tampa Bay from the defunct Piney Point phosphate facility was imminent but, as of July 31, had not occurred.
The oversight team at Piney Point indicated the stormwater has some salinity but is not contaminated like the 215 million gallons of nutrient-heavy wastewater released from Piney Point in the spring of 2021 believed to have caused large, extended harmful algae blooms last summer.
The site manager said the stormwater discharge is needed to deal with accumulated rainwater and advance plans to close the gypstack, part of the ongoing process to shut down Piney Point.
Groups such as Suncoast Waterkeeper and the Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay estuary projects were monitoring the situation.
“When you consider that the load to be discharged is likely 99.9% lower than what happened last year and that the form of nitrogen is less problematic, that should give us comfort that the impacts of these discharges will not be nearly as problematic as what we experienced last year. Nonetheless, this isn’t no impact,” SBEP executive Dave Tomasko wrote July 21 in an update for the organization.
He continued, “If the volume discharged is about 4.5 million gallons … then the load to the bay would still be close to adding around 100 bags of fertilizer to the bay. That is not nothing, and we should remain vigilant about potential impact.”
Manatee County wants to permanently close Piney Point by moving wastewater from the site into a deep-injection well system and then covering with dirt and grass the phosphogypsum stacks that currently hold the water.
— Lisa Neff
