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Construction crews atop the Piney Point gypstack labor to seal the breach on May 16. Photo DEP.
Manatee County, aided and abetted by the main culprit in this mess — the DEP, has opted to take the easy way out and dump the unwanted process water which is atop the gypstack into the ground. Hopefully not in our aquifer.
The problem with this is that scientists do not know what they are doing here. They do not know if these toxins will pollute our drinking water or not.
They do know that liquids in the earth may migrate upwards, and that, once in the ground, they will not go away.
This “solution” is akin to the tried and true way to dispose of trash– dump it into the creek or river and it is out-of-sight-out-of-mind.
Incredibly, some of the current Manatee County BOCC members previously voted to allow Mosaic to mine (destroy) more of their county. Seems Mosaic may have a pretty good stranglehold on the non-leaders of Manatee County.
What we have here is a choice between money and environment.
So we know the answer.
Read the original article here at WUSFNews.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Phosphate processing plants in the greater Tampa Bay bay region have caused some of Florida’s worst environmental disasters. Accidents like the recent spill at the former Piney Point plant fill the history books in Florida.
State Gives Manatee Draft Permit For Deep Well Injection Of Piney Point Water
Published September 2, 2021 at 6:02 PM EDT
Members of the public can submit written comments about the proposal and attend a public meeting on Oct. 6 in Bradenton.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has given initial approval to a Manatee County plan to inject treated water from the Piney Point phosphate plant into a well.
Members of the public will have an opportunity to submit written comments on the draft permit over the next 30 days. A public meeting to discuss the proposal will take place on October sixth in Bradenton.
Manatee County commissioners applied for the permit to build the injection system in April, after a leak in one of the reservoirs forced the release of more than 200 million gallons of contaminated water into Tampa Bay.
Officials have struggled to determine what to do with the remaining water, which sits in several ponds atop stacks of phosphogypsum, a toxic byproduct produced during the processing of phosphate.
Environmental groups have concerns that injecting water into the ground could contaminate Florida’s aquifer.
