Defunct Plant's Acid Water Threatens Bay PORT MANATEE, FL. (WUSF) - Ten million gallons of partially treated waste water were discharged from the Piney Point phosphate plant in November, before the state suspended the operation.

Millions of gallons of slightly acidic process water may again pour again into Tampa Bay as early as next week. The shuttered phosphate plant near Port Manatee may be forced to get rid of the water before rains again threaten to overflow its banks.

Workers at the phosphate plant are treating the acidic water with a double dose of lime and aeration. They are trying to neutralize the nitrogen, phosphorous and chlorophyll, which can stimulate plant growth and lead to algae blooms. These blooms can drastically decrease the amount of oxygen in the water, endangering fish and other aquatic life.

Louis Timchak is the court-appointed receiver for bankrupt Mulberry Phosphates. He says he'll make a decision when to resume the dumping into Bishop's Harbor after he gets results back from a laboratory later this week.

TIMCHAK: There has not been another discharge and there will not be another discharge until I'm satisfied that the quality of the water is the best that we can make. And I'm very concerned with the quality of water going into the bay. And that's something that we're looking at very carefully. We're going to do the very best we can, based on the equipment that we have, and we're going to do absolutely everything we can to protect the water in the bay.

About 600 million gallons of acidic water remains at the plant. Tropical Storm Gabrielle dumped so much rain on the site in September that about 45 million gallons must be released as soon as possible to prevent the site's walls from being breached.

The plant's operators are looking at about 17 options, including creating additional storage space and moving the water into another phosphate facility. This was done at bankrupt Mulberry Phosphates' other closed processing plant in Polk County.

Timchak says one of the more intriguing possibilities is building a pipeline from Piney Point to a nearby sewage line operated by Manatee County. He says a pipeline of about 1,000 feet would have to be built to connect to the water main.

TIMCHAK: One of our better options is to put it into the Manatee wastewater treatment facility, which would be then processed by the Manatee utilities and be included in their gray water distribution system for irrigation.

Manatee County officials will look at the lab results of the phosphate process water to see how it could be treated and how it would mix with the other water in the system. An official with Manatee County's utilities department says that water could include chemicals and heavy metals, which could adversely affect their treatment system.

He says other options being looked at include injecting the water deep into the ground, spreading the water on farmland or running a pipeline far into the Gulf.

But releasing any more water into Tampa Bay is being opposed by Manasota-88. Glenn Compton, head of the environmental activist group, says the discharge could harm a multi-million-dollar seagrass restoration being done in the area.

COMPTON: There's been some real concern on many people's part that the discharge that is being contemplated is going to further degrade sea grasses in the area and the restoration that's taking place within Bishop's Harbor may not be successful as a result of the discharges that are being planned.

Manasota -88 has been fighting the plant for years, saying that it was built in the wrong location. Bishop's Harbor is one of the parts of Tampa Bay that has been least impacted by development. Compton says there are no easy answers as to what to do with the overflow water. The group is unsure whether the plan to divert the water to Manatee County's utilities system is the best option.

COMPTON: The least desirable alternative at this point is discharge into Bishop's Harbor, even after it's been double-treated with lime. It's still not something that's environmentally safe to be doing. But, unfortunately, we're at a catastrophic stage where something needs to be done and needs to be done in relatively a short period of time.

The work being done at Mulberry Phosphate's two plants is being paid for by a trust fund administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The money comes from the phosphate severance trust fund, used to restore played-out mines.
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