Piney Point disaster: Florida environmental groups settle with state over wastewater spill

Video above: One stack capped, three to go after $75 million spent following Piney Point disaster (November 2023 report)

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — A group of Florida environmental organizations agreed to settle a federal lawsuit against the state over a massive wastewater spill at the Piney Point phosphate facility in Manatee County.

In the 2021 disaster, fearing a phosphogypsum stack’s containment walls would collapse and flood the surrounding community, regulators approved the release of 215 million gallons of polluted water into Tampa Bay.

Environmental groups blamed the following severe red tide outbreak and widespread fish kills on the incident. A 2023 study found the contamination was detected as far away as Tarpon Springs.

“The Piney Point disaster shook the Tampa Bay community to its core. It wasn’t too long ago that shorelines once teeming with life were littered with all kinds of dead fish for months. If you had previously found it swimming in Tampa Bay, it was likely dead after Piney Point,” Justin Tramble, executive director of Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, wrote in a statement.

The lawsuit, filed three years ago by Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, the Center for Biological Diversity, Our Children’s Earth Foundation, Suncoast Waterkeeper, and Manasota-88, alleged the state mismanaged Piney Point’s waste and violated the federal Clean Water Act.

On Monday, the groups announced that after allowing the facility to operate without a Clean Water Act permit for two decades, the state agreed to draft a permit for Piney Point, which will provide “more robust oversight,” the Center for Biological Diversity said.

“A strong, enforceable Clean Water Act permit for Tampa Bay’s most problematic polluter is long overdue,” Ragan Whitlock, a Florida-based attorney at the Center, wrote in a statement. “It shouldn’t have taken a disastrous pollution event and legal action to prompt our state regulators to do their job, but we’re hopeful this permit is a step toward eliminating the looming threat this site has posed for decades.”

The state will also pay $75,000 for water quality monitoring in the bay and will post reports of pollution online. Environmental advocates hope it will bring more transparency about what’s in our water.

“This is a win for the people of Florida and their environment and shows just how important citizen suits are in an age where regulators are too cozy with polluting industries,” Dan Snyder, director of Public Justice’s Environmental Enforcement Project, wrote in a statement.

Phosphogypsum is a byproduct of phosphate production, which ended at Piney Point in the 1990s. Wastewater has been held in “stacks” at the plant ever since.

As part of the effort to “cap” the stacks and shut down Piney Point for good, treated stack water is being injected below what we drink, more than 3,000 feet into the ground. Manasota-88 founder Glenn Compton told 8 On Your Side last year that he doesn’t trust the “deep well” science or the process of closing down phosphate facilities.

Echoing his previous statements to 8 On Your Side, Compton said in a written statement that there’s “no economically feasible or environmentally sound way to close an abandoned phosphogypsum stack.”

“The gypstacks at Piney Point represent the true legacy the phosphate industry will leave behind in Florida – perpetual spending of taxpayer monies and risks to the public’s health and the environment,” Compton said.

The Florida Legislature allocated $185 million to shutting down the facility . Taxpayers could still be on the hook for several decades after that process is complete, as state law will require it to be monitored for 50 years.

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