Contaminated water from Florida mining facility dumped a year’s worth of hazardous nutrients into Tampa Bay in just 10 days, study shows

All it took was 10 days to devastate the waters of Tampa Bay for months. The almost “catastrophic failure” of Piney Point, a former phosphate mining facility, unleashed thousands and thousands of gallons of untreated wastewater into native waterways, and new analysis, printed on the anniversary the leak on the facility started, reveals just how devastating it was. 

The incident started final 12 months when the corporate in cost of Piney Point, HRK Holdings, discovered a tear in the liner of a gypsum stack. That liner is what basically prevents thousands and thousands of gallons of mining wastewater and dredged supplies from seeping by way of a phosphogypsum stack – a large mound made up of phosphorus mining byproduct. That leak began to impression the structural integrity of the complete stack, prompting officers to evacuate residents over concern that the stack would completely collapse and unleash a large wave of water.

To stop that from occurring, officers needed to pump that wastewater into native waterways. Over the course of 10 days, greater than 215 million gallons of wastewater crammed with environmentally poisonous ranges of nutrients have been unleashed into Tampa Bay.

Marcus Beck, lead creator of the brand new environmental impression study, informed CBS News it was “the largest release that [the facility has] had to date.” The water contained excessive ranges of phosphorus and nitrogen, nutrients that when dumped into the bay on the ranges they have been, can create “a cascading environmental response that is not good for other resources in the bay.”

“It’s something that the ecology, the system, can’t handle,” Beck mentioned. “…Tampa Bay is an estuary that is nitrogen-limited, meaning that if you put nitrogen in the system it’s going to fuel algae blooms. And there’s all sorts of cascading effects that can happen from that as a result.” 

A year’s worth of nitrogen – 180 metric tons – was discharged into the bay from March 30 to April 9. By April 15, Beck and his crew began to look at a “run of the mill, non-harmful species” of algae that had bloomed across the Piney Point discharge website. In May and June, irregular “large floating mats” of filamentous cyanobacteria had appeared just south of Tampa Bay, which Beck mentioned could be dangerous at massive volumes. 

Those mats quickly went away, however that is when pink tide, a large algae bloom that is hazardous to each marine and human life, began to peak. Red tide originates in the Gulf of Mexico and shows up in Tampa Bay when circumstances are conducive to its development. In the previous, it occurred when rain was minimal and ocean salinity was excessive. 

But 2021 noticed the very best concentrations of pink tide in the realm since 1971, in keeping with Beck, creating heavy fish kills and pushing individuals from the seaside because the neurotoxins from the algae prompted eyes and noses to burn.

“Red tide is toxic,” Beck mentioned.

Between the bloom on the discharge website, the enormous mat of cyanobacteria and the aggressive bout of pink tide, Beck mentioned it was a clear indication that “this was not a normal year for the bay.” Although the discharge of wastewater at Piney Point did not trigger the pink tide, the researchers mentioned there are “multiple lines of evidence for an adverse environmental response.” 

“What we think happened is that when perhaps the red tide migrated into the bay from the Gulf, there was essentially a lot of food available for it — nutrients that were either there from the original discharge or they were released after decomposition of the initial phytoplankton bloom or the cyanobacteria,” Beck mentioned. 

And now, a 12 months later, there’s nonetheless a threat it might all occur once more. As of April 15, there’s roughly 258 million gallons of wastewater nonetheless in the gypsum stack. 

The state accredited a plan to shut the stacks, a deep injection properly, a 12 months after the spill, however it might take one other 12 months earlier than it is able to be crammed with the water. Meanwhile, Florida’s wet season is barely months away and will probably be intently adopted by hurricane season, which The Weather Channel has predicted will probably be busy. 

“A scary thought”

Manatee County Commissioner Scott Hopes informed CBS News that the gypstacks have capability for about 25 inches of rain. 

“That’s a scary thought because it just takes an above-normal storm season during our hurricane season to potentially drop more water than the stacks can hold,” Hopes mentioned. “Fortunately, there are some other sort-of backup retention ponds.”

The water nonetheless being saved is present process therapy. Hopes mentioned between 100 and 150,000 gallons a day undergo the therapy plant, and Beck mentioned the nitrogen load has been lowered from about 200 milligrams per liter down to 3 or 4 milligrams per liter. But these ranges are nonetheless above the baseline nutrient concentrations in Tampa Bay, so if one other spill is to happen, it might be a “significant load influx.” 

“That would still be a concern, however, not nearly a concern of what it was last year when they had the initial release,” Beck mentioned. “Stormwater management is always going to be a concern at that place until the water is 100% removed.”

Even with the closure at Piney Point, there are greater than two dozen different phosphate mining services in Florida – 9 of that are nonetheless energetic, in keeping with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. 

“When you have an industrial site that has this type of material and structure, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that this has a potential hazardous risk for the environment,” Hopes mentioned, including that points at Piney Point ought to have been resolved years in the past. 

“There was an opportunity to write the final chapter before HRK took this site over and that’s what should have been done,” he mentioned. “…Only companies that have experience with managing this type of industrial site should be involved with this type of industrial site.” 

Hopes mentioned he thinks “many people have learned a lesson” and that he “would not expect” what occurred at Piney Point “to ever occur again in the state of Florida.” 

But a number of different websites have had their very own hazardous issues. In 2016, a 45-foot-wide sinkhole opened up beneath a gypstack at a phosphate fertilizer plant in Mulberry, Florida, unleashing not less than 215 million gallons of wastewater into the Floridan Aquifer, in keeping with The Tampa Bay Times. And a few weeks in the past, the state introduced it is investigating a doable tear in the liner of a gypstack in Polk County, in keeping with WUSF Public Media. Mosaic, the corporate that owns each of these websites, is looking for a allow with Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection to develop a gypstack on the facility thought to have a tear in the liner. 

(*10*) Beck mentioned. “…If there’s a new location, making sure that there’s a plan, that wastewater or any other environmental impacts from that site, are taken care of in a manner that is not externalized to the community or the local environment.” 

Beck and his crew are actually finding out the longer-term implications of final year’s discharge, notably wanting on the impression it could have had on seagrasses, which may take a little longer to reply to environmental modifications. Seagrass is a essential half of the bay ecosystem and a important meals supply for manatees, which died in report numbers final 12 months, principally from hunger. 

 “We can just hope for the best, having these types of conversations and making people aware that these are concerns,” Beck mentioned, “…and making sure that folks that need to be held accountable for managing these sites in a responsible manner are actually held accountable.”