PALMETTO — Manatee County commissioners are debating whether county taxpayers or the state of Florida should pay to continue to maintain a disposal well containing contaminated wastewater from phosphate fertilizer manufacturing operations at Piney Point.
The 60-year-old former phosphate plant went into receivership after newest owner HRK Holdings LLC filed for protection under federal bankruptcy laws in 2012, according to records at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida in Tampa.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection permitted the 3,300-foot-deep well in 2021 at 3105 Buckeye Road over the objection of environmentalists, including local environmental group ManaSota-88, which said that wells are subject to failure, and that leaks of the contaminated water — which is also slightly radioactive — could poison the state’s drinking water.
Pumping began in 2023, draining the water storage ponds dug into the flat top of an eight-story-tall phosphogypsum stack, which is itself a waste product of phosphate processing. The cleanup is now in the seepage phase, which can last for decades, Manatee County Utilities Director Patrick Shea told commissioners on June 2.
Meanwhile, someone has to pay to keep it all running.
The receivership has $6.5 million left to spend on the well, Deputy County Administrator Corey Stutte told commissioners, adding, “The question is, how do we pay for it after that runs out?”
It shouldn’t be the taxpayers, according to Commission Chairman Tal Siddique.
“I don’t see treating Piney Point or someone else’s environmental disaster as a core function of our government,” he said. “It’s not something we should be paying for, period.”
But the county has been paying for the project, interim Manatee County CFO Claudia Campos told commissioners.
The county had $19.5 million to pay for the project, but had expenses of $42.8 million, and the receivership does not owe the county any money, she said.
“This project has shown to be a lot more expensive than originally thought,” she said. “We were supposed to get something from the state but we haven’t received anything.”
The state once promised to pay close to $200 million to close and monitor the well, but the promise was indefinite and never materialized, Commissioner George Kruse said.
The county is paying for it because a previous county attorney persuaded a previous commission to take on the project at the public’s request to keep Piney Point from polluting the aquifer, the source of Florida’s water supply, he said.
The decision was made to build a well, treat the wastewater, transfer it to the well and eventually cap the well and monitor it, Kruse said.
“There’s lots of things we do that we’re not technically responsible for, but that doesn’t mean we’re not informally responsible for it,” in this case, to avoid causing damage to the drinking water supply, he said.
Previous boards kicked the Piney Point issue down the road, Kruse said.
“We basically in 2021 stopped kicking it down the road because it started blinking,” he said. “It forced our hand.”
In 2021, 215 million gallons of contaminated water were dumped into Tampa Bay from ponds at Piney Point. The FDEP approved the discharge to avoid the compromised stack’s imminent collapse and the potential for flash flooding of area homes and businesses. Area residents and businesses were evacuated with little notice.
The contaminated water spread nitrogen and phosphorus throughout Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay, spurring a red tide bloom that caused widespread fish kills for several months.
Five environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity, Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, Suncoast Waterkeeper, ManaSota-88 and Our Children’s Earth Foundation, won an $846,900 verdict against HRK Holdings in 2024.
Commissioners voted unanimously to instruct county staff to begin contacting state officials and the FDEP about obtaining state funds to pay for the project and had to report back at the Tuesday, June 16, commission meeting.
Cindy Lane is a staff writer for the Tampa Bay Beacons. She can be reached at clane@tbnweekly.com.