Piney Point collapse, flood still possible but anomaly spotted by drone not a second breach
Manatee County is still threatened by the imminent collapse of a giant pond holding contaminated water but a team of engineers has determined that a newly discovered area of concern is not a second breach.
A breach on the southeast wall of Piney Point’s largest retention pond was discovered on Friday, which at the time contained about 400 million gallons of contaminated water. The threat of an imminent collapse and flood triggered evacuations of more than 300 homes in the area.
“At approximately 2 a.m. an infrared drone identified a signature that could indicate a second breach,” Manatee County Director of Public Safety Jacob Saur said Monday.
A team of engineers and dam safety specialists from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers determined later Monday that there was no second breach.
An uncontrolled spurt of water that had been releasing about 70,000 gallons per day north into Piney Point Creek, which connects through Cockroach Bay to Tampa Bay, has also stopped, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection announced Monday evening.
CONGRESSMAN’S TOUR
U.S. Rep Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, took a helicopter tour to survey Piney Point on Monday morning. At his request, a team from the Environmental Protection Agency has also responded to the site. Federal, state and county officials are running a “unified command,” he said.
“Seeing the tour and seeing the reality up there, it’s very concerning to me,” Buchanan said. ”I know they’re making some progress but to see the water spewing out, it looks very contaminated to me.”
Buchanan was first elected to represent Manatee County and parts of Sarasota and Hillsborough counties in 2006. By that time, the abandoned phosphate mine had long been an environmental concern.
Since then, cleanup efforts have received little federal attention. In October, Buchanan wrote a letter to the EPA warning that Piney Point’s reservoirs were running out of capacity.
“Clean water and protecting our environment are critical to our quality of life in Southwest Florida,” Buchanan wrote in an Oct. 20 letter to EPA Regional Administrator Mary Walker. “Federal oversight is needed to ensure the safe management and disposal of the contaminated water and prevent an environmental disaster.”
Speaking at a Monday news briefing, the seven-term congressman expressed frustration with the situation and the danger it poses to the region.
“I want to be hopeful and optimistic, but just the fact that we’re running water into Tampa Bay, it’s not a great place to be at, but the reality of it is it seems like the best thing to do right now,” Buchanan said.
“Enough is enough, so I’m angry about it frankly. I’m going to bring that intensity to make sure that we’re doing what we’ve got to do to get this fixed,” he added. “I know the county’s focused on it. The state is, but now it’s all of us working together and I’m going to do what I can to muster up the resources.”
State says water not radioactive
Water quality samples taken on Monday by Florida Department of Environmental Protection staff determined that the water is the south pond is not radioactive, the department also announced late Monday. The results of those water quality samples have not yet been made public, however.
Five additional water sampling locations were added on Monday around Port Manatee and the adjacent coastline — making a total of 11 locations being monitored by FDEP, Manatee, Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program. Sampling is monitoring changes in salinity, dissolved oxygen, clarity, nutrient levels, turbidity, radionuclides and other variables that will determine any changes in baseline water quality status in this area.
As of Monday, those water samples have revealed dissolved oxygen, salinity and pH, but according to FDEP, those levels still meet water quality standards. The results have not yet been released to the public, however.
Now FDEP is also looking to “deploy innovative technologies to remove nutrients from the water” in the south pond before it is discharged in an effort to prevent or minimize algal blooms.
THE FIRST BREACH
Crews on Friday found a breach in the site’s largest pond, which originally contained about 480 million gallons of water.
A controlled release of the water being pumped out into Port Manatee and Tampa Bay is expected to increase with the addition of pumps dropped onto the site by National Guard helicopters as local, county and federal officials still hope to avoid a full breach.
As of Monday morning, there were still nearly 300 million gallons of water in the largest pond, according to Acting County Administrator Scott Hopes.
“By the end of the day, we will more than double the amount of water we’re pumping out of that pool,” Hopes said. “We should be looking at 75 to 100 million gallons [pumped into Tampa Bay per day] by the end of the day.”
DRAINING THE POND
Since last week, emergency efforts have been made to drain the pond as quickly as possible. On March 29, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection approved an emergency final order allowing HRK Holdings, LLC, the company that owns the Piney Point site, to begin piping water out of that pond and into Tampa Bay.
Water in Piney Point’s largest pond is a combination of saltwater from the dredging of Port Manatee, rainwater and process water — a chemical byproduct of phosphate mining that contains high levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and ammonia.
While the FDEP authorization allows HRK to only drain enough water to stabilize the system, engineers fear that the tear in the liner causing the leak is near the bottom, which could mean that most of the pond needs to be emptied into the bay.
That prediction has sent environmentalists reeling. Many believe that amount of nutrient-rich water would fuel a harmful algae bloom, which could harm marine life, human health and local tourism.
GYPSUM STACKS
Piney Point has three retention ponds on the 676-acre site, all sitting above a lined stack of phosphogypsum, another byproduct of phosphate processing. Those phosphogypsum stacks form a large hill and are the highest points in Manatee County.
In the event of a full breach, water on top of those stacks would come rushing down into the surrounding areas. On Sunday, engineers predicted a surge could result in a 20-foot wall of water.
County officials and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had previously been relying on HRK Holdings’ third-party engineering team, according to Hopes. Officials hoped to have a better view of the situation late Monday after the independent assessment from the new team of new engineers from FDEP working with the U.S. Corp of Engineers.
Road closures also remain in effect, including U.S. 41. from Moccasin Wallow Road north to Valroy Road in Hillsborough County. More than 100 residents and their pets are being sheltered in local hotels.
“Going forward, public life and safety remains our priority,” said Saur, who urged residents to follow the mandatory evacuation notice. “If you are in that evacuation zone, you need to get out.”
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 2:23 PM.
