Florida officials were scrambling last week after a sewage pond at the former Piney Point phosphate mining plant caused a major leak – a situation officials described as a potential “catastrophe.” While officials have managed to drain the reservoir enough so that a “tidal waveWastewater has not flooded the area, experts told CBS News that the threat to the environment persists.
Residents living directly in the area are physically safe for now, state officials said, but millions of gallons of water have flowed into the ground and local waterways, and millions more were pumped directly into Port Manatee, an entrance to Tampa Bay on Florida’s west coast, to prevent the reservoir collapses.
From March 26 to April 9, about 237 million gallons of water leaked or was deliberately discharged from the reservoir, the state environmental department said. According to the state’s water quality dashboard, officials stopped discharging water into the port on Friday.
The water was determined to contain no harmful amounts of radioactive material, and officials have said that the water in the reservoir meets seawater quality standards “with the exception of pH, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, and total ammonia nitrogen.”
When questioned by CBS News, the state environmental department did not specify what the water quality standards are for both the facility and the sea waters. “It’s slightly acidic, but not at a level that is expected to be of concern,” the department said in a statement. “Teams in the field are now deploying nutrient reduction and water removal treatments on site to address any required discharges in the future. This will significantly reduce nutrient input to Port Manatee and help minimize impacts on water quality. “
Dr. Henry Briceño, a professor and water quality researcher at Florida International University who has various degrees in geological engineering, told CBS News that despite what officials say, the water is not up to water quality standards and officials shouldn’t play games with people.
“The concentrations of the nutrients are much higher than those of the receiving body of water,” he said, referring to Port Manatee. “Those waters don’t fall within the normal, regular water quality criteria for Tampa Bay.”
The nutrients of most concern when it comes to wastewater – a combination of salt water from a local dredging project, process water and rainwater – are nitrogen and phosphorus. While both are essential to plant life, excessive amounts can destroy ecosystems, experts say.
A joint statement released this week by environmental groups Suncoast Waterkeeper and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper estimated that the amount of nutrients entering Tampa Bay was equal to “about 100,000 bags of fertilizer” and that the wastewater “contains about ten times the nitrogen of raw sewage. These numbers, the groups said, are based on recent samples, and nitrogen levels can vary through the water column.
Jenna Stevens, state director of the Environment Florida organization, described the impact of this “nutrient pollution” to CBS News.
“Every body of water has a certain amount of pollution that it can take for it to get really, really bad and we start to see major water quality problems. And this amount of nutrient pollution can be really harmful,” Stevens said. “When [officials] were like, ‘Oh, well, it’s no more sour than a cup of coffee,’ well, it still doesn’t meet seawater water quality standards. It’s too acidic for our waterways and too full of these pollutants. ”
The Tampa Bay Estuary Program, which tracks water data near Piney Point, says in its online database they are most concerned about the increase in total nitrogen and ammonia released into coastal waters due to the drastic impact these nutrients can have on the health of the ecosystem. Nitrogen concentrations higher than 5-10 milligrams per liter can be problematic, the program says, and reports indicate that water near Piney Point was recorded with significantly higher nitrogen levels.
On March 31, five days after the company that owns Piney Point filed a report with the state that water seeped into the gypsum pile containing the water, a sample of water from Piney Point Creek, where the wastewater initially leaked, recorded 191 , 5 milligrams. per liter of nitrogen, an amount more than 19 times higher than the stated limit. Another point in the neighborhood registered 214.4 milligrams per liter, which is more than 21 times higher, according to the database.
According to environmental officials, the total nitrogen concentration in seawater should be limited to 0.74 milligrams per liter.
A week later, on April 7, officials said “elevated phosphorus levels” had been detected in Port Manatee, where wastewater from the Piney Point reservoir was being discharged. A water sample from April 5 discovered 2.1 milligrams per liter of orthophosphate, a form of phosphorus. That level is 21 times higher than the marine quality standard for phosphorus, namely 0.10 milligrams per liter. Other samples taken from the port on that date also had levels at least double the standard threshold.
Stevens, of Environment Florida, fears what this spill, or whatever in the future, could do to Tampa Bay, which has been the center of restoration and protection for decades after disastrous pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s, the local population, state, and federal government made extensive efforts to revitalize the area.
Tampa Bay Estuary Program
A priority of those efforts was to maintain proper nitrogen levels. Excess amounts of the nutrient lead to more algae, which means less light can enter the water. Algal blooms, Briceño explained, create a devastating cascade effect for marine life, as the algae change oxygen levels as it expands, and even as it dies and decays.
“It’s a self-feeding mechanism that is continuous,” Briceño said, adding that he “won’t be surprised” when it happens.
Environmental officials told CBS News Saturday that there have been “visual observations” of increased algae in the water.
“Algal bloom samples have been collected with great caution and are currently being processed,” they said.
And when it does, it will also take a negative toll on seagrass, an essential plant for the Tampa Bay ecosystem. Seagrass is not only a vital food and habitat source for manatees and other marine life, but is also essential for improving overall water quality.
It has taken decades and millions of dollars to restore seagrass, and all it takes, Stevens said, is extra acid to wipe it all out.
“So much of our way of life here in Florida is about our time on the water … That’s where we go out and enjoy our life,” said Stevens. “Scientists and advocates have been saying this is a problem for decades, and polluters were not called to account. And now Floridians have to pay the price for their mess.”
And if the seagrass disappears, it could endanger the Florida manatees, an endangered species in the midst of an unexpected extinction, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. More than 600 manatees were found dead between January 1 and April 2. Between 2016 and 2020, there were an average of 203 deaths per year.
Experts believe that manatees’ access to food is a contributing factor, but not the sole reason, for the sudden death.
“Obviously, more study needs to be done to fully determine the causes of all these deaths,” said Stevens, “but what we are seeing leads us to believe that these manatees are running out of food, that they may starve. of seagrass loss statewide. “
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has made similar statements, nothing that food loss is a “contributing factor” to manatee deaths.
“Seagrass, like many plants, needs sunlight to grow,” the committee said on its website. “Since 2011, the persistence of algal blooms has resulted in decreased water clarity and light penetration, leading to a dramatic reduction in seagrass. Seagrass is the primary food for manatees in these systems.”
The Florida Senate voted to assign $ 3 million for the 2021-2022 fiscal year to help clean up the wastewater at Piney Point. But the funds, if included in the final budget, wouldn’t be available until July 1 – one month after the hurricane season officially started.
Tropical storms and hurricanes pose a greater risk to local and environmental security around Piney Point, as strong storms can damage flooding in ponds and infrastructure. These storms have become more frequent and severe over the years, and this year the National Hurricane Center will begin routine monitoring of tropical weather.
Todd Crowl, director of the Institute of Environment at Florida International University, said that while the Port Manatee wastewater landfill is poor, ecosystems can normally recover as long as they are not continuously infiltrated.
“But if you hit it once, and then again in a fairly short amount of time,” he said, “it never has time to make a full recovery.”
Tampa Bay, he said, “is getting dangerously close” to such a problem, and a hurricane that hits before the system can recover could do more permanent damage.
It may take months to see the full effects of the sewage landfill, but Briceño fears the consequences will affect South Florida’s already fragile waters.
“That’s what I fear we might have in those ecosystems … that we go beyond those tipping points,” he said. “And then we don’t know what’s going to happen, but it certainly won’t be right.”