Manatee prepares to help pay for a fix at Piney Point. It could cost county $6 million
Hoping to avoid a potential crisis at Piney Point, Manatee officials have signed on to a cost-sharing agreement with state officials to find a safe resolution.
According to the proposed agreement, Manatee County would pay for half of a $12 million “emergency water treatment” project to dispose of the 800 million gallons of process water at the old phosphate mining plant.
The process water at Piney Point poses a major threat to the environment and the community. The ponds on the site are reaching maximum capacity, which leads to the potential of a spill of nutrient-rich water that proliferates harmful algae blooms like red tide.
Despite concerns over how the county could afford a sudden $6 million contribution, the Board of County Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday evening in support of submitting the request as a placeholder.
Manatee’s funding agreement is part of an appropriations request in the Florida Legislature. According to Charlie Hunsicker, the county’s director of the Parks and Natural Resources Department, the county is racing against the clock to submit the request.
The county had previously planned to host a work session in February to discuss the options available to clear out the contaminated water at Piney Point. The deadline to submit an appropriations request in the Florida House is Tuesday, Feb. 2, a whole month sooner than the county was originally told.
“We thought we would have the workshop to get a lot of these answers,” Commissioner Vanessa Baugh told her fellow commissioners. “The problem is that the paperwork has to be in Tallahassee before that.”
The funding request calls for a feasibility study to determine the best option for clearing out the water, Hunsicker said. Once an option has been chosen by the board, the county would partner with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for permitting and design of the treatment process.
But $12 million might not be enough to resolve the issue. According to a draft version of the appropriations request, Manatee is likely to ask the state for another $1 to $2 million a year over the course of 15 years to help pay for the complete closure of Piney Point’s phosphogypsum stacks. Those contributions would bring the project’s overall cost to over $40 million.
Tuesday’s commitment is non-binding. Until the funding request is approved by the Legislature and the governor, Manatee is not on the hook to contribute $6 million. Without the state’s commitment, the project would not move forward.
By submitting the request before Feb. 2, the county retains the right to modify or remove their request throughout the legislative session. Manatee officials are working closely with their state delegation to find the funds to resolve Piney Point.
State Rep. Will Robinson, R-Bradenton, recently sent a letter to FDEP Secretary Noah Valentein urging his department to partner with the county to fund and find a solution that would safely remove Piney Point’s process water.
“My personal strong preference is (to) remove all the contaminated water from the entire site and to close the stacks, rather than utilize a deep well injection, which in my view just punts the issue to a future generation,” he wrote. “I believe that there are effective technologies in place to clean the entire site in a scientific, timely and cost-effective manner.”
Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge said he was upset at the county’s rushed decision to commit millions of dollars without understanding the full details of the project. He also expressed concern over whether an underground injection control well would be considered by state officials.
“I can assure you this board will be the ultimate decision-maker,” Baugh responded, noting that Robinson has expressed his concern about an underground well option.
Commissioner Carol Whitmore also said she didn’t like the idea of suddenly promising to pay a least $6 million to resolve an issue on private property. HRK Holdings LLC acquired the Piney Point property in 2003 after the former owners filed for bankruptcy and abandoned the land.
“Where do we have $6 million for Piney Point ... that we don’t own?” Whitmore asked. “It’s in our county and there’s a major issue with it and I agree that it needs to be resolved. I can’t believe you’re bringing this up now and asking us to make a vote with no information.”
Speaking in support of the commitment, Commissioner George Kruse helped convince his fellow board members to see the board’s action as a temporary, non-binding agreement.
“I fail to see why we wouldn’t put this in as a placeholder because of the timing. Yes, in a perfect world we would wait two weeks, have this discussion next Tuesday, learn everything there is to know about what’s going on, but we don’t have that time,” Kruse said.
“We can put this in and pull it back out after our Feb. 2 meeting if we have all the information and say, ‘You know what, that’s a bad decision. It’s a terrible use of money. We don’t have money,’ but we can’t wait until Feb. 2 and put it in,” he continued. “It only goes one direction after that time.”
Finding a solution to Piney Point has become a priority for the commission. They previously voted to declare the environmental threat their top legislative agenda item, seeking to identify and begin working toward a solution by the end of the year.
Manatee’s state delegation also agreed to make the issue their No. 1 goal in Tallahassee. Despite budget constraints due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the lawmakers all agreed to make a concerted effort to find funding for Piney Point.
Following the board’s approval, county staff are working with Robinson’s office to submit their funding request by Friday evening. Commissioners are set to discuss potential solutions for Piney Point during a workshop meeting at 1 p.m. Feb. 2 at at the Bradenton Area Convention Center, 1 Haben Blvd., Palmetto.
This story was originally published January 27, 2021 at 10:11 AM.
